


Omens of a Bright and Peculiar Future

by AgentStannerShipper



Series: To Build a Family in Ineffable Circumstances [2]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Dream Sequences, F/M, Kid Fic, Light Angst, M/M, Mpreg, Prophecy, Sort Of, Trans Character, Weird Angel Biology, angel gender is weird, its a metaphysical pregnancy of a trans character, references to sex but no actual sex scenes, trans aziraphale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2019-12-18 11:41:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 40,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18249125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentStannerShipper/pseuds/AgentStannerShipper
Summary: When angels were created, they were programmed with a sort of reproductive delay, intended to be used after the war. Aziraphale chose to remain on Earth, rather than return to Heaven, with the assistance of Crowley, his longtime-friend-turned-lover. Now both have to live with the repercussions of that decision.They can't say they're unhappy about it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This follows It All Comes Back to You because like a few readers, I also couldn't stop thinking about "but what if they actually did have kids?" So ignore the last paragraph of that: here's what really happened. 
> 
> I'll try to post updates weekly but I make no promises. Tags to be updated as each chapter is posted, so keep an eye on them. I'm shitty at titling, but you probably guessed that.

Aziraphale was pregnant, although he wasn't entirely sure how he knew. It wasn't like there were angel doctors with whom he could schedule a check-up to be certain, and human doctors were out of the question. But he had a, well,  _ineffable_ feeling that this was in fact the case. He was pregnant. And it was Crowley's.

It had to be Crowley's, of course. Aziraphale had never had sex with anyone else. Still, after six thousand years, not all of it friendly and nearly none of it as romantic partners, it gave Aziraphale a giddy sense of pleasure in knowing that it was the demon who'd managed to "knock him up" as he put it. Crowley had assisted him through every wave of his heat, which had come and gone at odd intervals, occasionally disappearing for weeks or even months at a time before returning, full force, to make him miserable. Well, miserable when Crowley wasn't knotting him, at any rate. It had gotten worse, as the Metatron had warned him, but they'd managed. And now he was pregnant.

On the bed beside him, Crowley stirred, squinting up at Aziraphale from under the cover of a large, black wing. "Alright, angel?" he asked. "Need another go?"

"Don't think so," Aziraphale said. The uncomfortable feeling of emptiness was gone, as if it had never been there in the first place.[1] 

Crowley's squint deepened, and he pushed himself half upright. "Are you...glowing?"

Aziraphale examined his hands. He liked to think he exhibited a low level of celestial radiance at all time, although deep down he knew this was probably not true. "I'm not sure," he said. "Do you think so?"

Crowley sat all the way up. _He_ looked rather radiant, Aziraphale thought, with his wings and hair mussed and his gorgeous yellow eyes exposed. Aziraphale often wished Crowley wouldn’t wear the sunglasses that hid his eyes from view, but after several hundred years of watching humans react rather badly,[2] he certainly didn’t begrudge the demon for practicing safety. "Definitely glowing," Crowley said, aforementioned eyes narrowing further, and then widening. "Are you..."

"I rather think so."

"Christ," said Crowley.

"Oh, I hope not," said Aziraphale. "It'd better not be His, for one thing." Angels didn't consider Him their father the way humans often assumed, but it was an unappealing thought nonetheless. "Is it noticeable, do you think?"

Crowley eyed Aziraphale's stomach doubtfully. "It shouldn't be. We only just did it last night."

"I meant the glowing."

"Oh." Crowley looked up at Aziraphale's face. "Nah," he said, and smiled. "Not to most humans, at any rate. And there aren't many nonhumans, occult  _or_ ethereal, kicking around the planet these days."

The thought of Heaven dampened Aziraphale's good spirits. "They won’t be happy about this, will they?"

"I doubt it. An angel and a demon having a kid? It's unheard of," Crowley said. "Would be even if that was something you could do before now. Our...sides aren’t exactly known for mingling." He said the word ‘sides’ with the uneasy sound of someone remembering that technically, they didn’t belong to any sides except their own anymore, but wasn’t sure how else to phrase it. Aziraphale forgave him for the implication.

"I don’t think it's  _technically_  mixed, is it?" he asked, stroking his stomach. "I mean, you were an angel before you were a demon, after all."

Crowley contemplated that for a moment. "Maybe," he said, "but I don’t expect Heaven and Hell will see it that way. And anyway, I'm a demon now, aren't I? That’s bound to count for something."

Aziraphale hummed thoughtfully.

"Half angel and half demon," Crowley said. "I don't even think there's a word for that. Do you?"

"Oh, probably," Aziraphale said, although despite being very well read he couldn’t actually recall. "Humans like coming up with that sort of thing. Anyway, I stand by my initial assessment. If it's a matter of genes, the child will be more angel than demon anyway."

It was, in all probability, not a matter of genes. Metaphysical pregnancies, rare though they were, generally weren't about genetics at all. But the universe could be pesky at times, and liked to play tricks, and so Aziraphale could very well have been right.

"It’s like with Adam," Crowley said. "It’s not about the genes. It’s about how we bring it up. Good and bad influence." And he was definitely right.

"That's good, then. If you're correct," said Aziraphale.

Crowley blinked and gave Aziraphale a questioning frown. Aziraphale explained, "The child will have one not-quite-angelic angel parent, and one not-so-demonic demon parent. Everyone else close to the family will be human. That's about as neutral as it’s possible to get."

"And you want it to be neutral?" This was news to Crowley, who had rather expected Aziraphale to be taken with the idea of raising the child for Good.

Aziraphale fixed him with a firm look, eyes narrowed. "I want it to be a good person. But that doesn't mean I want it to be Good. And I most certainly don't want it to be Evil." Which was fair enough.

They were both quiet for several minutes, absorbing the information. 

"We're going to be parents," Crowley said.

"We are," Aziraphale echoed. 

Another few minutes.

"How much do you know about babies?" asked Aziraphale. 

Crowley shrugged. "Not much." Nothing helpful, anyway. Most of what Crowley had learned about babies over the years had to do with how much they irritated everyone around them when they started crying in public. Even Warlock's second-hand rearing had taught him very little. "I was hoping you'd have a book recommendation or two."

"I haven't read any books about babies," Aziraphale admitted. The only books he'd read about babies were the sort of book that involved a mother dying in birthing a child who would grow up for some great and terrible destiny. He hoped this pregnancy was not that sort.

“Probably ought to before it comes. Nine months, do you think?”

“Could be. Could be more.” Angels lived effectively forever, after all, unless something happened to get them killed permanently, and that was incredibly rare. Aziraphale had gone on reading binges that lasted longer than nine months. He knew Crowley had taken much longer naps.

“We’ll need to pick out a name,” he said. “Not Biblical, I suppose? I imagine you’d be rather against that.”

“Not especially.”

“Really?”

Crowley shrugged. “It’s not like most of the people in the Bible had anything to do with me. Long as we don’t name it Michael or Gabriel…you know, the big angels…”

“Fair enough. What about something Greek, maybe?” Aziraphale mused. “Classic Greek names are wonderful; Nymphodora or Cassandra…or something from astrology, like Bellatrix or-“

“Not Bellatrix,” Crowley complained at once. “Astrology name or not, now that Rowling’s books are part of mainstream culture you can’t go naming a kid after one of the villains. And Nymphodora’s out too.”

“I thought Nymphodora was one of the heroes?” Aziraphale asked. He’d read _Harry Potter_ , and determined it was a lovely read, if one ignored the glaring plot holes and an author who refused to shut up.

“She is,” Crowley said. “But I hate the name, and mark my words, the kid will too. Besides, it’s too early to pick a name. We’ve only just found out. And those are all girls’ names. We don’t even know that it’s a girl yet.”

“I don’t think it will be a girl,” Aziraphale said. “Or a boy. It’s not as if angels or demons experience gender the way humans do, so I don’t see why a child of an angel and a demon should be any different. And anyway, there’s no such thing as a ‘girl’s name.’ Not really. The way I see it, it makes just as much sense to give it a name now, and let it change it later if it likes, when it’s old enough to think on it properly.”

“Might be best to stop referring to the thing as an ‘it,’ then,” Crowley said. “Ought to start calling it ‘them,’ I reckon.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Aziraphale rested his hand on his stomach and looked down at it. “You know, I really didn’t expect this.”

“You didn’t?”

“That piece of your biology was turned off. I hoped, of course, but I wasn’t sure you’d actually be able to do it.”

“You don’t regret it, do you?” Crowley sounded worried, and when Aziraphale looked up at him, he _looked_ worried too. His brow was creased, and his long tongue kept flicking out to wet his lips.

Aziraphale took both of Crowley’s hands in his. “I could never regret this,” he said. “I asked you. I wanted us to be able to. I just thought I might be disappointed.”

“In other words,” Crowley said, bringing their joined hands to his lips and kissing the backs of Aziraphale’s fingers, “you doubted.”

“I did.”

Crowley smiled. “I always find it funny. When you doubt and I have faith.”

“I don’t find it funny at all.” Aziraphale allowed himself to be pulled in, and Crowley rubbed his nose against Aziraphale’s and then pressed a brief kiss to his lips.

“We’re going to be parents,” Crowley said, grinning.

In spite of himself, Aziraphale grinned too.

 

[1] That was probably the biggest clue for Aziraphale. Even between waves of heat, there had still been a sense of emptiness inside him, subtle but irritating, and of course gradually worsening until Crowley satisfied it with a knot.

[2] The thirteenth century sprung immediately to mind.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anathema is named a godmother. She has some concerns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates will be Mondays. I have enough so far to last through the release of show, and no sign of being close to done. So keep on eye out on Mondays, and if I get to a point where I finish the story I will up posting to multiple times I week. I hope you all like sickeningly domestic fluff, because that's what 90% of this is.

Following The End of The World that wasn’t, Aziraphale and Anathema had become quite close. They were both intelligent, they both shared a love of reading – Anathema had been more impressed with Aziraphale’s collection of Bibles and prophecy books than nearly anyone else who had seen them – and they both had a partner who wasn’t nearly as cool as he liked to believe he was. Although, to be fair to Crowley and Newt, neither was actually all that convinced of their coolness, but continued with the façade in the hopes that other people would at least think they were. It only worked for one of them.

While Crowley had been napping, before Aziraphale’s biology had kicked in unexpectedly, the angel had spent quite a bit of time at Jasmine Cottage. Anathema had moved in officially shortly after the end times, in part to be close to Adam, and Newt had moved in with her a little later. The decade had done Anathema good. She’d gotten more or less used to not living by a set of moderately helpful prophecies, although both she and Aziraphale still occasionally lamented the loss of the second book, the same way a recovering alcoholic might lament the loss of a very old, very expensive bottle of wine: a shame from a professional perspective, but better for them on the whole. The time had also given them the chance to watch Adam Young grow up.

In observing Aziraphale with the antichrist, who both Anathema and Aziraphale suspected by now had retained at least some of his former abilities, although they didn’t speak of it, Anathema had drawn two main conclusions. The first was that Aziraphale was a good-natured person, even for an angel, who was willing to put up quite cheerfully with any number of questions from Adam and his gang, and who could manage to win over even the highly suspicious and temperamental Pepper, simply by being himself. The second was that he was absolutely rubbish with children.

It wasn’t that he treated children badly, or did anything to make them dislike him. Quite the contrary; the Them adored him, and had throughout the time they’d been busy growing up. So did just about every other young person that Anathema had ever seen Aziraphale interact with, including Damian Johnson – formerly called Greasy – and his old gang, Pepper’s younger sister, and, on the occasions she’d gone to the city to meet him, the assorted children whose parents brought them out to the duck pond Aziraphale liked to visit for a bit of fresh air. He’d once told Anathema a story of a disastrous birthday party he’d been to shortly before the apocalypse had not happened, and she’d had trouble fathoming Aziraphale being so thoroughly disliked by a group of children even more so than she’d had trouble believing that Aziraphale was the sort of person who knew how to do stage magic.

No, the problem wasn’t that children didn’t like Aziraphale, or even that he didn’t like them, which also wasn’t the case. The issue was that Aziraphale had trouble treating children like children, even when he ought to. Being an angel, the concept of a bedtime seemed foreign to him, and he frequently expressed surprise at young people not being his sort of well-read. Given that he himself didn’t need to eat, and only did so for the enjoyment of the thing, he was also a little overzealous with the sweets he doled out, much to Brian’s delight in particular. Anathema hadn’t seen Crowley at all over the past decade, and so had never seen him interact with a child outside the apocalypse, but knowing he was a demon, she suspected he was also the sort of person who might not be the best influence on children in the long term, no matter how glowingly Aziraphale spoke of him.

"You're having a baby?" Anathema's expression was one of badly masked horror, the look of someone who is trying to be supportive, but who is deeply concerned about who the universe allows to be parents these days. Or, even more accurately, it was the look of someone who has burned a book of prophecy and is deeply regretting it, because Agnes would almost certainly had something to say about a half-angel, half-demon baby running around. That seemed like the sort of important thing she would have predicted.[1]

Neither Aziraphale nor Crowley appeared to notice. The former sat opposite her at Jasmine Cottage’s tiny kitchen table, sipping tea out of a delicate china cup that had been cheap plastic a moment before he touched it. The latter was strolling around the room, poking at things that Anathema was surprised he could see behind his dark glasses. He didn’t look like a demon, she’d thought when Aziraphale had reintroduced him. At least, not any more than any other young up-and-coming business man or lawyer looked like a demon, which is to say he did, but not in a particularly occult sort of way. Crowley, of course, was neither lawyer nor businessman, although Hell was particularly impressed with both sorts of people, and he most definitely wasn’t young, but he gave the impression of being all three. His aura, Anathema had noted, was a burning dark light, but it hadn’t felt all that evil.

“We are,” Aziraphale confirmed, sounding rather pleased with himself, but also a bit nervous. “The short of it is, after the apocalypse, Heaven fixed it so the angels might be able to repopulate. The trouble is, the apocalypse _didn’t_ happen, but the angels are still going through it anyway. I didn’t want to go back to Heaven to be…well, bred, and certainly not by some angel I didn’t know, but biology was rather…insistent. Crowley graciously agreed to give me a hand, so to speak, and here we are.”

Anathema looked back and forth between the two. She’d assumed they were a couple when they’d first met, all those years ago when she’d crashed her bike into Crowley’s car, but since then there’d been moments when she’d doubted. At this point, it seemed too late to ask, so instead she said, “Congratulations, I suppose.”

“Thank you, my dear.”

Crowley bristled slightly at the term of endearment, and Anathema’s internal meter spun back to pointing at ‘couple.’

Newt, who was leaning against the kitchen counter, was silent, and had been since Aziraphale and Crowley had shared the happy news. His mind was working very hard to understand how Aziraphale, who to his understanding was male, could be having a child. He was currently stuck somewhere around surrogacy, and it would be several minutes before it occurred to him that a, men with the right biology could become pregnant and b, Aziraphale wasn’t technically a man anyway, even if he was, as he called it, man-shaped.

“Anyway, that’s why we came to you,” Aziraphale said, taking another sip of his tea. “We thought, given the nature of the pregnancy, having an occultist and witch as the godmother might be a good idea.” He looked back at Newt. “And of course, that would make you the godfather, I suppose.”

“Since Adam’s a bit young for it,” Crowley added, glancing at Newt with scepticism. Newt didn’t seem to notice, and actually looked rather flattered.

Godparents. An angel and a demon wanted them to be godparents to their…was there even a word for what sort of creature that child would be? She’d have to look it up on the Internet later.[2] “Thank you,” she said politely. “That’s quite the honour.”

Aziraphale beamed. “Well, we are friends, after all. I couldn’t imagine anyone better for the task.”

“Is it just the one, do you think?” Anathema asked, trying to focus on Aziraphale’s aura without looking like she was staring. Pregnant people had a glow about them that differentiated their auras from those who weren’t growing a tiny life inside them, and Aziraphale was no different, even if the circumstances were.

“We were hoping you’d be able to tell,” Aziraphale admitted. “It’s possible there’d be more than one, but we can hardly go to a doctor to ask.”

“Anyway, it’s a little early to know for sure,” Crowley added, with the confidence of someone who’d just read several baby books and was hoping that what applied to human pregnancies applied to angels.

“I can take a look," Anathema offered. "But I'm not sure I'll be able to tell you anything."

"We would very much appreciate it," said Aziraphale.

Anathema gave up on pretending she wasn't staring and focused intently on the angel. His aura had always just seemed bright to her, not so much coloured as it was just...well,  _bright_. Not exactly white or yellow, like one expected of light, but giving the impression of white or yellow, and very hard to look at for too long. It still looked the same on the surface, but beneath it there were growing threads, darker shades winding together beneath the glow. It didn’t look insidious, which was a relief, but even after looking for as long as she dared, long enough that her eyes started to water, she couldn't see anything beyond the fact that yes, Aziraphale was pregnant. She sat back and told him as much.

"Oh well," he said, not sounding particularly bothered. "I suppose we'll find out eventually." 

Crowley circled around and gripped the back of Aziraphale's chair, leaning into it. The angel leaned back, and Crowley rested his chin briefly on Aziraphale's head. When he straightened up again, he asked, "As an occultist, you don't have any books that talk about angelic pregnancies, do you?"

"Afraid not."

"Didn't think so." Crowley sighed. "Ah, well. We'll figure it out, won't we, angel?" He stole Aziraphale's teacup, took a sip, made a face, and gave it back. 

"Have you told Adam yet?" Anathema asked.

Aziraphale shook his head. "We're planning on it, when we get back, but he's been so busy with university and everything. I'd hate to distract him with news like this."

They finished their tea. Anathema's had gone cold. Something was bothering her. She stood up and looked at Crowley. "You know about cars, don't you?" She assumed he had to. He had an antique Bentley, after all, and appeared to take excellent care of it.

Crowley looked taken aback, but nodded. She gestured for him to follow her out the door, leaving Aziraphale and Newt behind. "You'll want to take a look at this, then," she said.

Behind them, as the door swung shut, Aziraphale turned and gave Newt a warm smile. "Well," he said. "How's work?" Aziraphale had much improved his small talk in recent years. He'd read a few books on it for exactly these scenarios.

Outside, Anathema dragged Crowley over to the Wasabi. He looked at the car with undisguised disdain and quirked an eyebrow at her. “You didn’t bring me out here to show me _that_ , did you?” he asked, the word ‘that’ morphing in his mouth from something unobtrusive to a word which sounded synonymous with ‘monstrosity.’

“You’re a demon,” Anathema said.

Crowley cocked his head. He tilted his chin down and lowered his sunglasses with one long finger. “Whatever gave you that idea?” Anathema tried not to startle as yellow eyes with slitted pupils were revealed. His smile was serpentine. He pushed the glasses back up his nose. “What about it?”

“The child,” she said. “It won’t be evil, will it?”

For a split second, she regretted being so frank. When the second passed and Crowley didn’t do anything awful to her for suggesting it, she relaxed slightly. The demon looked rather put out. “You mean, ‘cause I’m the father?” he said. “You’re worried the kid will be demonic too?”

“Well, yes,” Anathema admitted. She fidgeted and tried not to lean against the Wasabi. “No offense.”

Crowley shrugged. “Honestly? They probably will be, at least a bit. Way I understand it, children usually are. But keep in mind, Aziraphale’s the father too, and he’s almost sickeningly good.[3] Hell, look at Adam. His father is Satan, for crying out loud. Just because you’ve got a demon parent doesn’t mean you’ll turn out to be a bad person.” Despite the gentleness of the rebuke, there was an edge to his voice.

Anathema felt properly chastened. “Sorry.”

Crowley waved her off. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, pretending he wasn’t either. “Someone was bound to bring it up.” He ran his hand along the Wasabi’s hood, then drummed his fingers against the paint job. In a softer voice, he added, “I hope they have his eyes.”

“Pardon?”

“The kid,” Crowley said, a little louder. He wasn’t looking at her, or at least, she didn’t think he was. With the glasses it was difficult to tell. “I hope they have his eyes. Aziraphale’s, I mean.”

“As opposed to yours?”

Crowley huffed a bitter laugh. “You saw. Tends to upset people, doesn’t it? Not all that attractive to boot. I’d hate to saddle a kid with those genes. ‘Specially when they could have Aziraphale’s blue. It’d be a crying shame.”

It would be, Anathema thought, but she didn’t say that. What she said instead was, “I’m sure the child will be lovely. However they turn out.”

Crowley nodded. He glanced back towards the door. “That’s why you dragged me out here, then? Didn’t want the angel to hear you questioning me about the possible Satanic nature of our offspring?”

Anathema blushed. “Well, yes.” It wasn’t the sort of thing she’d wanted to say within earshot of an angel, especially not one who defended his demon partner so exuberantly.

“Fair enough,” Crowley said. “You’re not going to make me actually look at the car, are you?”

“Believe it or not, it actually used to be much worse.”

“I believe it.” Crowley eyed the painted “Dick Turpin” with disdain.

Anathema led the way back inside, just as Aziraphale was saying, “It’s not the I _want_ to be fighting with him, of course. But I do miss the bickering.” He brightened up as he caught sight of Crowley. “Oh, you’re back.”

Crowley grinned, and swooped in to press a kiss to the angel’s lips. “You miss bickering with me, huh? Am I being too accommodating?”

The angel turned red. “Things have just been a bit different since we stopped being on opposite sides. It’s not a bad thing. I just miss the banter on occasion.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Crowley said. “You all ready to go?”

Aziraphale nodded and stood up. He took Anathema’s hand between both of his own. “Thank you for having us over.”

“Of course,” Anathema said automatically. “And congratulations again.”

Aziraphale beamed. Crowley threw an arm around the angel’s shoulder and led him out of the cottage. Anathema stood in the doorway and watched the Bentley drive away. Something was turning over in her stomach, something not…worried, exactly. But nervous. Waiting.

Newt stood next to her. “He’s pregnant,” he said finally. “Aziraphale. They’re going to have little cherub babies.”

“Not cherubs,” Anathema said, absently. “Something new.”

 

[1] She had, and several prophecies in the second book had been dedicated to it, prior to the whole thing going up in smoke.

[2] Newt had not gotten any better with computers over the years, but they had one anyway. Anathema used it for research, connecting with other occultists online, and occasionally watching videos. Newt was not allowed to touch it.

[3] Well, sickeningly good by demon standards, anyway. By human standards, Crowley had long since recognized that Aziraphale was a good person, but he could be a bit of a bastard when he wanted to, and when he wanted to was often.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Them are informed.

Adam lived in London, although he didn’t like it anywhere near as much as Tadfield. He was only living there until he was done with university, anyway, so it didn’t really matter. And he liked being close to Crowley and Aziraphale. He usually only got to see the latter, but Aziraphale’s bookshop was cosy, and it had all sorts of interesting things to read, so long as he promised not to damage any of the books. He promised, and he never did.

The three of them were in Aziraphale’s back room. Crowley’s glasses were off. Adam had always thought Crowley’s eyes were a lot more interesting than ordinary people’s, and wasn’t it a shame that he didn’t go around showing them off more? Crowley had snorted when he’d suggested it, and said that there was still a lot Adam needed to learn about the world.

The news that the two of them were having a baby was intriguing. Adam wasn’t sure he liked babies, and never really had, but this was Crowley and Aziraphale’s baby, and that made it loads more appealing.

"Are you going to lay eggs?" he asked thoughtfully, eyeing Aziraphale's stomach. Angels had wings like birds, after all, so it stood to reason that their babies could come from eggs too.

Aziraphale exchanged an alarmed look with Crowley. The thought hadn't occurred to him. "I don't know," he said. "This sort of thing hasn't ever happened before."

"Why not?" asked Adam, who despite being now in his mid-twenties had never grown out of the habit of asking questions. Questions were how you learned, and Adam liked learning.

“It just hasn’t,” Aziraphale said. “There haven’t been any new angels since we were first made, and even then we were never children.”

“If you do lay eggs, are you going to sit on them?”

“I suppose I’ll have to. Or lay heating blankets on them, although I don’t know if that will be the same.”

Crowley rolled his eyes. “There won’t be any eggs. If there were eggs, I’m pretty sure we’d know by now.”

“How?” Adam challenged. He lifted his chin. “Aziraphale said there’s never been an angel pregnancy before. Could be he’s got an egg inside him right now, and he just hasn’t laid it yet.”

Aziraphale looked a bit ill at the prospect.

“And what about wings?” Adam asked, his mind moving beyond the birth. “They’ll have to have wings, won’t they? Angels and demons do. And will they be black or white, do you think? Or grey, ‘cause it’s in the middle?” He paused, considering. “Or speckled, maybe? Black with little spots of white, or the other way ‘round.”

Aziraphale didn’t know how to answer that. Angel and demon wings were the same, after all, and they weren’t, strictly speaking, black and white. Nor were they technically feathered. They just _appeared_ that way because that was what the human mind could handle seeing, and the colouring came from the humans’ perception of the wing’s _aura_ , rather than an innate whiteness or blackness. Generally, Crowley and Aziraphale stuck to the human descriptions, because it was easier and much shorter, but if someone were to ask them, while they were drunk, to describe each other’s wings, Aziraphale would have said Crowley’s were the colour of finding that umbrella you’d thought you lost just in time for it to start raining. Crowley would have rolled his eyes, but if pressed, would have said that Aziraphale’s wings were the colour of missing your train, only to find out that an old friend is on the next one.

Fortunately for Aziraphale, Adam didn’t need an answer. He was too busy speculating. “Baby demon-angels could be tremendous fun. Flapping about and the like. Could tie them to a string and fly them like a kite down at the park.” He considered for a moment, and then shook his head. “No, that’d be weird.”

“And dangerous,” Crowley said. His fingers twitched towards his sunglasses subconsciously, before his hands realized they weren’t on his face.

“And dangerous,” Adam agreed, although not for the same reason. His thoughts were more about getting tangled up in powerlines than pursued by angry mobs. He looked at Aziraphale. “Do you know how many you’re having yet?”

“Not yet,” Aziraphale said.

“I bet you it’s more than one.” Adam spoke with confidence, and Aziraphale remembered the young man’s powers. He wasn’t sure how far they extended, but he wrapped a protective arm around his stomach anyway. Crowley noticed, and squeezed Aziraphale’s shoulder. Adam continued, “Doesn’t make much sense, making it so angels can repopulate if they’re only gonna have one kid.”

“He’s got a point,” Crowley said to Aziraphale.

“If you need any help with them,” Adam offered, “I’m here.”

“We appreciate it.” Aziraphale smiled. “But your first priority should be your studies.”

Adam waved a hand. “That’s easy. That’s hardly any work at all.” It was true. He had a natural aptitude for remembering all the important bits of the books he’d read, and an active imagination that ran circles around academia. He was suited for it.

“You’re graduating soon, aren’t you?” asked Crowley, who knew very little about higher education outside of America, where tuition was so high, it put most students in debt for the rest of their lives (and was almost certainly not worth what you got out of it). It was truly diabolical, and Hell hadn’t had a hand in it at all.

Adam nodded. “Me an’ Damian. Probably move back to Tadfield afterwards, unless you need me to stick around in London?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Aziraphale assured him. “Tadfield isn’t that far away. You’ll still see plenty of us.”

“You could move to Tadfield,” Adam suggested. He brightened. “It’s a great place to raise kids, you know. Kids’ paradise, I saw a magazine call it once. It’s got lots of great ponds for kids to play in, and roads for kids to bike down, and-“

Crowley and Aziraphale exchanged looks. Crowley cut Adam off. “We like London. Tadfield is fine, but we’re planning on staying here for the time being.”

Adam slumped, disappointed. It only took a few seconds for him to perk back up. “Can I tell everyone, then? Bet the gang will be real excited to hear about this.”

“Anathema and Newt already know,” Aziraphale said. “But if you’d like to tell Pepper and Wensleydale and Brian, be my guest.”

***

“I didn’t know angels could have babies,” Pepper said, switching the phone to her other ear as she tugged on her laces. It was difficult to hear Adam over the roar of the crowd, but if she strained she could make it out. “Congratulations to them.”

Since she’d been eleven, Pippin Galadriel Moonchild had gone from a fierce, opinionated, and frequently violent girl to a fierce, opinionated, and only occasionally violent young woman. She was working through a law degree and acing it with gusto. The men in her classes were terrified of her, and rightfully so. Pepper had a biting tongue and a mind like a steel trap[1] and could rattle off sharp lists of facts that proved a point so thoroughly, no one would dare argue with her. She had, on more than one occasion, reduced a fellow classmate to tears. They would also be terrified of her, Pepper reflected happily, if they knew what she did on the weekends.

Martial arts, as her parents had suggested, had proved to be too constrained for Pepper. Instead, at the age of sixteen, she had fallen in love with roller derby, and now “Assault and Pepper” was one of the most feared women in the rink.

“Are you at the arena?” Adam asked.

“Got a match in a couple minutes.” Pepper yanked the laces of her skates tight and straightened up. “I have to go. But give Aziraphale my best, and tell him congratulations from me.”

“Will do,” said Adam. “Give ‘em hell for me. And tell Liz that I said hello.”

“’Course,” said Pepper. She hung up and stowed her phone in her bag. Then she followed her girlfriend, Elizabeth “Pain and Prejudice” Fitzwilliam, and the rest of her team out to greet the screaming crowd.

Maybe Aziraphale would let her take the baby to a match or two, she thought. After all, it was never too early to foster an interest in sports.

***

It surprised no one when Wensleydale went into accounting, although it did disappoint his parents, who had hoped he’d spend his teenage years in a fit of unexpected rebellion. Instead, he’d gotten an internship, and was now well on his way to a corner office. Accounting suited him in the way it always had; it appealed to his rational mind and inscrutable logic. The only concession to growing up as one of the best friends of the antichrist was that, for reasons inexplicable to his co-workers but quite rational to his friends, Wensleydale’s office was full of books about theology. He liked to read them on his lunch break and send Aziraphale emails asking about which bits were true.

He smiled when he read Adam’s email, and then glanced over at his bookshelf thoughtfully. He’d never read anything about angelic pregnancies before, but it was a new research topic, and research always made Wensleydale smile. And he did have a few minutes before his lunch break was over, so he might as well get started.

***

Brian was the one with the creative arts degree, and he was making use of it. Learning things inside had never particularly appealed to Brian, and so he’d spent as much time out of doors as his parents and teachers would let him. Much of that time had been in Anathema’s garden, and he had, with her permission, done some quite good watercolour renderings of her at work.[2] The resulting series of children’s books, _The Nice Witch_ – a title which had made Anathema chuckle, and which was about a young woman who roved the English countryside using magic to measure lay lines, talk to angels, and protect small children from supernatural forces – had been astonishingly successful and subsequently banned by several self-proclaimed good Christian organizations, which made it all the more popular. Aziraphale had a signed first edition of every one. Brian had done some other work as well, a bit of art, a bit of writing, but none he was quite as proud of.

“Cor,” he said into the phone, laying back on a patch of grass and staring up at the sky. “I didn’t even know they were together.”

“I didn’t either,” Adam admitted, relieved. He’d assumed, of course, as a lot of people had, but assuming and knowing weren’t the same thing, and it seemed impolite to ask. “But I guess they are, and now they’re having a baby. Well. At least one. Maybe more.”

“Cor,” Brian said again. He watched the clouds for a minute, drifting lazily against the bright blue expanse. “Think we’ll get to babysit them?” He liked kids. He didn’t have a girlfriend like Pepper, or a boyfriend like Adam, but that had never particularly bothered him. What he did want, somewhere in the future, were kids.

“Probably,” Adam said. “Half demon, half angel? They’ll probably need all the help they can get.”

Brian thought about it. Yeah, he decided. They probably would. And he’d be more than happy to assist.

“I should go,” he told Adam. “Got a meeting with my editor soon. He wants to talk about the next book.”

“Good luck,” said Adam.

Brian slid the phone back in his pocket. He stayed laying down for another minute. It was too nice a day to be inside doing boring meetings. He sighed and stood up, brushing at the grass stains on his shirt. That was the price one paid for being an adult, he supposed.

***

Adam looked up when the door to the flat opened, and he smiled when Damian walked in. Time had been good to Damian. He was still very large, but he’d grown into it in a way that reminded you of a cartoon elephant: a little clumsy, but ultimately endearing. He set down his bag and leaned down to give Adam a kiss, which Adam stretched up into from his position on the sofa.

“Good day?” asked Damian.

“Good day,” said Adam. He twisted around, watching as Damian moved over to the tank of tropical fish they kept. “You remember Aziraphale, don’t you?”

“Your uncle?” Damian nodded. Aziraphale was, of course, not actually Adam’s uncle,[3] but that was how he’d been introduced, and it had stuck. Damian liked Aziraphale. He’d been a little odd, but so completely and totally himself that when Damian had gotten a little older, he’d thought being himself might not be so bad either.

Adam nodded. “He and his partner are having a baby.”

“Good for them,” Damian said approvingly. Aziraphale wouldn’t be a traditional father, that’s for sure, but Damian was convinced he’d be a good one. He settled on the sofa next to Adam, and Adam put his feet in Damian’s lap.

Dating Damian, Adam had decided long ago, was the best decision he’d ever made. After Armageddon, the rivalry between the Them and the Johnsonites had become far less antagonistic. Adam didn’t think it was anything he’d done. It seemed like it was just part of growing up. And a few years later, Damian had apologized to him and the rest of the Them personally, and he and Adam had grown quite close. By the time they were sixteen, Adam had decided that not only was Damian a friend, but someone he’d like rather more with, given the chance. Damian had agreed. They’d been together ever since.

It wasn’t six thousand years, Adam reflected, but it was a start.

***

“It feels a bit strange,” Aziraphale said.

Crowley’s head snapped up, like he was expecting to see Aziraphale go into labour. “What does?”

Aziraphale waved a hand, understanding without a word the demon’s worry. “Not physically strange, my dear. Metaphorically strange.”

Crowley relaxed. He cocked his head. “What’s strange, then?”

“Telling people,” Aziraphale said. He tidied up a stack of books, then locked the door and dimmed the lights. “What with all the worry about Heaven and Hell finding out, it feels a bit odd, telling our friends about the child.”

“Hell’s not gonna hear it from them,” Crowley said. “Nor is Heaven, for that matter. Don’t worry about it.” He was, but he wasn’t going to say that. He’d read stress was bad for the baby somewhere in one of those pregnancy books.

“I’m not. It’s just interesting, is all.”

They ascended the stairs to Aziraphale’s flat together. Crowley wouldn’t say he’d moved in, but he was comfortably at home.

“Do you think it’s going to be an egg?” he asked eventually.

The same question had been bothering Aziraphale all afternoon. “I hope not,” he said. “I’ll be very put out if it’s an egg you’ve put inside me.”

“Want me to put something else inside you, then?” Crowley leered, wrapping his arms around Aziraphale’s waist from behind and drawing him backwards, although he left a respectful sliver of space between them.

Aziraphale huffed without any true exasperation and shook his head. “Serpent,” he muttered affectionately. “If you feel you must.”

Crowley nipped gently at Aziraphale’s neck, then soothed it with a kiss. “Only if you want to.” He had been half-joking anyway, and he wasn’t going to push. The physical aspect of their relationship had been bothering him a bit; now that Aziraphale didn’t need sex, Crowley wasn’t sure how much touching he was allowed, and he’d been nervous about bringing it up. He didn’t want to Aziraphale to think he expected anything.

Aziraphale shot him a contemplative look over his shoulder. “Well,” he said eventually, “I didn’t keep my bed like that for nothing.”

Crowley grinned, and led the way.

 

[1] The kind with teeth that was used to catch bears.

[2] Not at her actual work, of course. Family investments, thanks to Agnes, meant she had a tidy bit of money tucked away, but Anathema liked to keep busy, and so paid the bills largely through editing puzzle books online, in between the witching.

[3] At least, not unless you believed that all angels were brothers, which Aziraphale and Crowley and every other angel and demon they’d met emphatically did not.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale has a dream and gets the mail.

Aziraphale was dreaming. This was unusual because he didn’t recall falling asleep. In fact, until recently, sleeping was not a thing he did at all, and even then he hadn’t dreamed.

He was in a garden. No. Not a garden. The Garden. The place where he’d first met Crowley, assuming they’d never met in Heaven before Crowley had fallen. Aziraphale didn’t think they had, but Crowley didn’t like to talk about Before, so Aziraphale had never asked.

It was a nice day. Or, since he was sleeping, a nice night, but it was day in the dream. The sun was shining. Aziraphale sat beneath a large apple tree. Possibly The apple tree, but it was all a bit muddy on that front. The branches rustled in the light breeze. Aziraphale looked around and saw nothing.

“Hello?” he called out. Then, “Crowley? Dear boy?”

There was no reply. At least, there was no verbal reply. Aziraphale was instead blanketed by a sudden warmth, a sort of writhing all over his body, like maggots, but much more pleasant. He rubbed a hand over his forearm, but the feeling wasn’t tangible. It peeled away from him in a sheen of light and wound its way around his fingers.

“Hello,” he murmured. “What are you, then?”

The light trilled and cooed. It had a sort of pulse to it, Aziraphale realized. Like a heartbeat.

He smiled as he caught on. Yes, he thought, this seems right. This feels natural. “You’re a clever one already, aren’t you? Trying to communicate.” He cupped his palm, and the light curled up inside it. He cradled it close and nuzzled his cheek against it. It glowed hot. So much potential.

“Your father, that is your other father and I are at quite a loss about you, my dear. I don’t suppose you know anything?”

It pulsed again.

“I thought not. But you are a child, after all. Or nearly, anyway.” Aziraphale sighed. “May I be frank with you? I’m frightened. I don’t want to worry your father, but I _am_. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me, and there’s no one I can turn to to ask. And after you’re born, then what? What if Heaven finds you? Or Hell? What might they do to you, to us? Our family…” Aziraphale shuddered and shook his head. “But I shouldn’t be burdening you with this, my dear. You should be focusing on growing.”

The light swirled in his palm. Perhaps it was all in his head, but Aziraphale could almost hear what it wanted to say.

“You stay in here as long as you need, my darling. Let your father and I worry about everything else. You’re quite right, I should speak with him. He’d want me to.”

The light trilled. Aziraphale kissed the top of it, or came as close to kissing what he thought was the top of it as was possible, considering the intangibility. “I love you,” he said. “And your father does too. Above all, whatever you are, you will be loved.”

The light pulsed and swelled and grew, spilling over the sides of Aziraphale’s palm like it could hardly contain itself. It stretched and tore and, to Aziraphale’s amazement, burst into several separate pieces that shot out to all corners of paradise.

He woke up.

It was a novel feeling, waking up. He didn’t think he’d ever get used to it. Crowley was sleeping beside him, naked and apparently satisfied. Aziraphale slid out of bed and dressed, wrapping up in a comfortable jumper and smoothing his hand over his stomach. It was still flat, or as flat as it would ever be, although the pudge had never bothered Aziraphale, but it felt different somehow. Fuller. Warmer. The dream was already slipping away, but he pictured the light, burning under his hand. It was in there. Somewhere. And eventually, it would be ready to come out.

If nothing else, he could say with certainty now that it was not an egg.

He made himself a mug of cocoa for the comfort of it. By the time he was sitting at his kitchen table nursing it, Crowley had apparently woken up. His only concession to modesty was a pair of pyjama trousers, which hung low on his hips as he wandered into the kitchen. He stretched and yawned. “Morning, angel.”

“Good morning, my dear.”

“Mmm, ‘my dear.’ And so early too. What have I done?”

“You haven’t done anything.”

Crowley swiped Aziraphale’s mug and took an appreciative sip. “You sure? You look morose as Hell.”

“I’m not,” Aziraphale said, defensively. “I was just thinking, is all.”

“Oh, never do that in the morning,” Crowley advised. He sat down opposite Aziraphale, taking another sip from the stolen mug. “What were you thinking about?”

“I had a dream.”

Crowley paused. “You what?”

“A dream. I had one. Last night.”

“We don’t dream. I haven’t had a dream once, not even during the whole of the nineteenth century.” He paused. “Unless angels…?”

“I’d never dreamed before last night either. The child was in it.”

Crowley straightened up. “They were?” He leaned across the table. “What do they look like?”

“Nothing, yet. I got the impression they might still be working it all out.”

“Huh.” Crowley sat back. He was no longer drinking from the mug, but toying with it between his hands. “Smart kid.”

“They are. Quite bright.” Aziraphale smiled at the joke. Then he frowned. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

That didn’t sound good. Crowley’s fingers tightened around the mug and then released it. “Alright. Shoot.”

“I’m frightened.”

Crowley blinked and cocked his head. “Come again?”

“I’ve been doing my best to appear cheerful about the whole thing, because you told me not to worry, but I am. Worried, I mean. I’m worried about our child, what they’ll be. I’m worried about what Heaven and Hell will do if they find out. And most of all I’m worried about worrying about all that _and_ being a parent. Our child deserves happiness. A proper life. Not looking over their shoulder all the time because their parents went against cosmic forces.” He took a deep breath. He didn’t need to, but it was soothing.

For a moment, Crowley said nothing, just stared. Then he said, “Thank God.” He paused, and amended, “Well, thank Somebody.”

It was Aziraphale’s turn to cock his head in confusion.

Crowley reached across the table and took his hands. “I’m worried too,” he said. “Hell, I’m terrified. I want to be supportive, but the truth is, I don’t know what to do. I’ve read a dozen books on parenting, but it hardly seems adequate. It’s not like there’s a handy little pamphlet, ‘What to Expect When You’re Expecting,’ asterisk, ‘when what you’re expecting is half angel, half demon, and definitely not sanctioned by The Powers That Be.’ It’s…a lot.”

“You could still back out,” Aziraphale said softly. Crowley looked at him in horror. “You could,” Aziraphale said. “You’re not the one that’s pregnant. You could leave.”

“Have you gone mad? ‘Course I’m not leaving you. And I’m not leaving the kid either.” Crowley tightened his grip. “I said I was in, angel. I meant it. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Then what are we going to do?”

“It’s like we said before. We’ll figure it out.”

“And what if we don’t?”

“I think if billions of humans can muddle their way through parenthood and have the kids turn out to be just fine, we’ll manage.”

“None of the humans were parenting children quite like this one,” Aziraphale pointed out.

Crowley laughed. “True,” he said, “but none of them could wield a heavenly flaming sword, either. And I know that if it comes to that, you’d fight tooth and nail for this kid. I would too. So that’s what we’ll do. Figuratively and literally, if we need to. Alright?”

Aziraphale nodded. He felt slightly better. “I just wish we had a better idea of what to expect, you know? Instead of going off speculation and guesswork.”

“I know what you mean,” Crowley agreed. “It’d be nice. But we’ll get by. Not everything can be prophesised.”

They sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes more, and then Aziraphale went downstairs. It was time to open shop. For a few hours, at any rate. He flipped all the lights on and unlocked the door, flipping the sign from “closed” to “open.” He did not bother readying the cash register. It was purely for show.

He caught sight of the parcel on his front stoop just as Crowley came down the stairs, still clad in just his pyjama trousers and with his hair a mess, but now wearing his sunglasses too. Aziraphale brought the package in and frowned at the lettering. It was addressed to him and Crowley, but not to A. Z. Fell and A. J. Crowley. It used their real names.

“What’s that?” Crowley asked, peering over Aziraphale’s shoulder. He didn’t wrap his arms around Aziraphale’s waist, but his hands twitched, like they wanted to.

“I’m not sure.” Aziraphale brought the package in and set it on the counter. He cut neatly through the tape and lifted the flaps. Inside the box was a smaller parcel, wrapped in paper, and with a note on top of it. The paper looked ancient, because it was.

With careful hands, Aziraphale lifted the note to examine it. He blinked once, and then stopped blinking. He’d forgotten to.

“Angel?” Crowley frowned, poking at the paper in the box and then glancing up at Aziraphale’s face. “You alright?”

Wordlessly, Aziraphale handed him the card.

“For the Angel and Deville blesset wif new lyfe. Reed welle, lest thy offspring bringeth regrette,” Crowley read. He vaguely recognized the handwriting. “Is this what I think it is?”

“What was that you were saying about prophecy, my dear?” Aziraphale asked. While Crowley had been reading, Aziraphale had picked up the wrapped parcel and gingerly peeled away the paper. The cover read: _Further Nife and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter. Concerning the Worlde that Is To Com; Ye Saga Continuef!_ And underneath that, in much smaller letters: ( _abridged)_.

“That old bat,” Crowley said. He took the book from Aziraphale and flipped it open.

Aziraphale laid a hand over the page, obscuring the words. Crowley looked up at him. “Do we really want to know?” Aziraphale asked. “I mean, it’s one thing to read about the futures of other people, or the world at large. It’s quite another to read about your own life and family. Isn’t it?”

Crowley fixed him with a look.[1]

Aziraphale lasted another two half-hearted seconds before he crumbled. “Well, give it back, then. I worked with the original book, I have a better chance of understanding this one.”

Crowley passed it back. This time, he gave in to his desire and wrapped his arms around Aziraphale’s waist, resting his chin on the angel’s shoulder and reading along with him.

**[801]: And Seven sharle cometh togefer and Seven sharl they be, butte all of Wonne hart and Two souls, and they wille ken Evil butte they wille not et the Frut nor fyl the Flammes.**

“Well that sounds ominous,” Crowley said. “Are these in order, do you think? The last book wasn’t.”

“I’m not sure.” Aziraphale ran his finger carefully along the lines at the top of the page, mouthing them to himself. “Seven…do you think…?”

“Seven’s an important number in a lot of places,” Crowley said. “Seven could mean lots of things.”

They exchanged glances. Crowley let go of Aziraphale’s waist and started to pace. “’They will know evil.’”

“But they won’t _be_ evil. At least, I think that’s what it means.”

“Yeah, but that’s me, innit?” Crowley said miserably. “Evil.” He wasn’t sure why it bothered him so much. It had never bothered him before, the thought of being evil. It was just a side, wasn’t it, and when it came right down to it, there was nothing inherently evil about being a demon anyway. Not in human terms. But still. It bothered him, and had since Anathema had brought it up.

Aziraphale set the book down on the counter and caught his partner halfway through a lap, halting him. “You are not evil,” Aziraphale said. “Not the way humans mean it. And we don’t know that the ‘evil’ in the prophecy refers to you.”

“It might.”

“It might not.” Aziraphale clung tighter. “I love you. Our child…our _children_ love you. I felt it.”

They’d never said the words before – hadn’t needed to – and Crowley’s heart decided to skip a beat like he was some kind of human. He cleared his throat. “You’re an angel. You’re supposed to love.”

“Are you saying you don’t love me?” Aziraphale lifted his chin. There was something burning in his eyes that Crowley hadn’t seen in years. “You are a demon, after all.”

“’Course I love you,” Crowley protested. “You’re…you.”

“And you’re you,” Aziraphale countered. “And yes. An angel is supposed to love all things. And I do. More or less. But if you think for a moment that the way I love you is the same as the way I love the universe, you’re more of an idiot than I thought.”

“ _Language_ , angel!” Crowley said in mock astonishment. “Really, that mouth. It’ll get you into trouble one of these days.”

“I believe it already has,” Aziraphale said, looking significantly at his stomach.[2] He leaned in and rested his forehead against Crowley’s. “Please believe me, my dear, when I say that I love you unlike I have ever loved anything else in this world.”

And Crowley did believe him. It was impossible not to, not when so much earnest sincerity dripped from the angel’s voice. He closed his eyes, wishing for a moment that he wasn’t wearing his glasses. “I love you too,” he whispered. “More than I ever thought possible.”

Inside Aziraphale, something lit up. It felt a bit like a firecracker going off, except without any of the pain. “Oh!” he gasped, and put a hand on his stomach. The other clutched at Crowley tightly in an attempt to keep himself steady.

“Angel?” Crowley grabbed him, supporting his weight.

“I’m alright,” Aziraphale breathed. “It’s the child…children, that’s all. I think they liked hearing that from you.”

“Yeah?” Crowley’s face split into an undignified grin. He didn’t care. He covered Aziraphale’s hand on his stomach, and murmured, “I love you too, you know. Even if there are seven of you.”

The lights went off again inside Aziraphale. It was overwhelming. It was beautiful. “They love you too,” he said. Suddenly, he felt sure that everything would be alright. They had a book of prophecy. They had love. They had family and friends. And surely, that would be enough.

 

[1] It was a look that said, “We both know you’re full of shit so don’t even pretend with me.” It was a look Crowley had given Aziraphale many times, and which Aziraphale often ignored.

[2] He had been the one to call Crowley, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may notice there is now a final chapter number listed. I have completed this installation of the series, but I'm not going to be upping posting times just yet because I'm currently working on the followup. There are more than ten chapters yet to come, but when I finished fourteen the narrative was in a good place to break into its own followup fic. Hopefully you're all still reading by the time I get to posting that! 
> 
> A Number is revealed in this chapter. I have already chosen names, but if anyone wants to hazard a guess, I'm considering offering a ficlet in this universe for correct answers (I say, like there are more than two people reading this lol). Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. See you next Monday!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley irritates Aziraphale and suffers the consequences.

After a great deal of research, Crowley had felt fully prepared to tackle whatever Aziraphale’s pregnancy could throw at them. Several stacks of parenting books, many his height or higher, now crowded the walls of Aziraphale’s bedroom, and Crowley had read them all. He was ready.

Except, even several months into it, Aziraphale was exhibiting zero signs of being pregnant, save for the change to his aura. He wasn’t experiencing morning sickness or congestion or fatigue or any other signs of the early stages of human pregnancy. Although he’d always been on the plumper side – “Fat, my dear, you can say it, I’m not offended. I like my shape, and I know for a fact you do too.” – Aziraphale hadn’t put on any weight. His stomach hadn’t rounded out to show signs of growing life within. In fact, the only symptom of pregnancy that Aziraphale appeared to be exhibiting was moodiness, and Crowley was fairly certain that had more to do with a hovering demon than anything else.

“For goodness’s sake,” Aziraphale had snapped somewhere around month five. “You’re like a brooding chicken. You’d think _you_ were the one that’s pregnant, the way you keep nesting around here.”

“I’m trying to make you comfortable.”

“I _am_ comfortable,” Aziraphale said, although Crowley didn’t know how anyone could be comfortable hunched over a table, pregnant or not. Aziraphale wouldn’t even move to the sofa, and he’d threatened to eviscerate Crowley if the demon even _thought_ about moving Aziraphale’s stacks of notes. He’d been buried in Agnes’s book the entire time.

It had resulted, ultimately, with Crowley being kicked out of Aziraphale’s flat for the first time in his life. He’d sullenly returned to his own, with the silent understanding that this was roughly equivalent to being made to sleep on the sofa until the angel stopped being irritated at him.

He didn’t like it. He’d thought he’d liked his flat before, but now that he was spending time there he realized he hated it. It was stylish, sure, but it wasn’t cosy like Aziraphale’s flat was. It didn’t make him feel at home. The only thing living about his flat were the houseplants, which looked greener than ever.[1]

The worst part was the office. He couldn’t even go into it. He’d tried, once, and ended up staring for several hours at the spot on the carpet where there should have been the stain formerly known as Ligur. It had vanished in Adam’s post-apocalyptic clean-up, but Crowley remembered where it had been, and just looking at it brought with it a paralyzing sense of terror and nausea. He’d eventually managed to close the door and slide down it, his back pressed against the wood. He’d sat there for two days. The door had not been touched since.

He read more parenting books to pass the time. The pregnancy ones clearly weren’t helpful, so Crowley refocused on the ones dealing with the birth and raising the kids. Part of him wanted to go to sleep, just for something to do, but more of him worried that if he fell asleep now, he might not wake up if Aziraphale needed him. So he didn’t sleep. He steered clear of the bedroom altogether, just to avoid the temptation.

About three weeks into being alone, his phone rang. Still the BlackBerry, although he’d been meaning to upgrade it. It was Anathema.

“Hello?” he answered.

“Crowley? It’s Anathema.”

“I didn’t know you had my number,” said Crowley, who had gotten hers from Aziraphale.

“I got it from Adam.”

“Right.” He sat back on the sofa and put his feet up on the coffee table, nudging a stack of books aside with his foot. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I couldn’t get ahold of Aziraphale. Is he alright?”

“Last I checked,” Crowley said. “He’s a little irritated with me for mother hen-ing him, so I’ve been kicked out for the time being.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Anathema said, with the tone of a human thinking about things in human terms. “That sounds serious.”

“It’s really not. And it was my fault too. I know how he gets when he has a project. I expect in another few weeks I’ll be allowed back around again.”

Anathema’s response was slower, like she was still processing the difference in magnitude. “Right. So he’s busy?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Well, I got talking with Brian, and then we spoke with everyone else, and I know angels and demons don’t usually follow human traditions, but we were wondering how Aziraphale might feel if we threw him a baby shower?”

Crowley considered that. “I think he’d like that,” he said eventually. “Although you should probably wait until he’s done with that book.”

“Book?” Anathema asked.

“Don’t worry about it.” The last thing the angel needed was Anathema bothering him too. If he wanted to share the book, he could tell her. “I can pop in on him and ask, if you’d like.”

“Please.”

“I’ll call you back later, then?”

“Thank you,” said Anathema. She hung around awkwardly for a moment, like she wasn’t sure the proper valediction. Crowley took pity on her and hung up first.

Part of him wanted to rush over right away. He missed the angel. They’d been apart for much longer stretches of time in the past, of course, but things were different now. Crowley felt Aziraphale’s absence keenly, and it hurt.

But he didn’t go. Not immediately. He dithered. He read another parenting book. He drank a bottle of wine slowly enough not to get drunk. He went to the shops and replaced his BlackBerry with the newest, top of the line iPhone. But eventually, he admitted to himself that he was stalling, and he made his way towards Aziraphale’s little bookshop.

There was a sign on the locked door. It read: _Closed until Further Notice_. The mail was piling up on the stoop, and Crowley gathered it up in his arms and dumped it on the counter inside. It was dark. He slid off his sunglass, although he could see perfectly well, and tucked them into his breast pocket. He swallowed hard and made his way up the stairs.

The door opened before he got a chance to knock. On the other side of it, Aziraphale’s expression was a mixture of relief and guilt. “They missed you,” he said, the hand not on the knob resting on his stomach. “They felt you coming back.”

“Oh.”

They stared at each other a moment. Crowley’s heart lodged itself somewhere in his throat and stuck. Aziraphale hesitated, and then said, “I am so-“

Crowley shook his head, and Aziraphale stopped. “I was being overbearing,” Crowley said.

“You were just trying to take care of me.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t need it. Should have asked what you wanted.”

“I shouldn’t have been so cross.”

Crowley smiled weakly. “I know how you get when you’re reading.”

They stood there for another long, tense moment, the doorway still between them. Then Aziraphale sagged. “I missed you so terribly, my darling.” He reached out for Crowley, and Crowley stepped into the hug, burying his face in Aziraphale’s neck and breathing in the angel’s scent. He smelled, as always, like books and lightning.

“I missed you too,” he said.

“Come inside?”

Although he was loathe to let go of Aziraphale, Crowley did. The notes had migrated around the flat, spread out across nearly every available surface. Crowley had to step carefully to avoid treading on the ones scattered across the floor. “Still at it?” he asked.

“It is a book of prophecy,” Aziraphale pointed out. “By the world’s most accurate and quite possibly most mean-spirited prophetess. It took me days to sort out enough of the last one to make any sense out of it, and most of that had happened already. And there were other notes.”

“True.” Crowley peered at the notecards. Some had prophecies rewritten on them, some with notes, some without. Others were made up solely of notes. The one nearest Crowley’s hand, when he set it down on the table, had one single word printed on it. “Fruit?”

“What?”

Crowley indicated the card and lifted an eyebrow.

“Oh.” Aziraphale shrugged. “It’s appeared quite a bit throughout the book. I thought it might be important.”

Crowley nodded his understanding and side-stepped another line of cards. “How, uh…” he swallowed. “How are you doing? Physically, I mean?”

“The same,” Aziraphale said. “I mean, I feel warmer, but that’s it.”

“Warmer?” Unease churned in Crowley’s gut. “The heat’s not coming back, is it?”

Aziraphale shook his head. “No. A different sort of warmth. I think it’s the children growing.” He smiled faintly at nothing in particular. “That’s how they appear to me. These little balls of warm, glowing light.”

“They appear to you?”

“When I dream.” Aziraphale chuckled. “I don’t even remember falling asleep, and then they’re there.”

Crowley felt a stab of jealousy and tried to keep his face neutral. “And there’s seven of them, yeah?”

“Yes.” Aziraphale rummaged in his inside pocket, and then withdrew a notecard. He toyed with it. “I’ve, ah, been making a list. Just thoughts. Possible names. I figured you’d want input before we decided.”

“Doesn’t the book say what we’re going to call them?”

Aziraphale shook his head. “Agnes is very…euphemistic about that. I have another card, somewhere around here, that has lists of phrases that I think refer to the children without naming them, but I think…one moment.” He stepped around the room with practiced ease. When he found the card he was looking for, he picked it up and offered it and the list of names out to Crowley.

Crowley shuffled the list to the bottom and read the other card.

**[243]: Ye sharl namme them as their Natures be and ye sharle calle them Forevermore, but as with All Things ye sharle do it Togefer and from the hart.**

“Surprisingly straightforward for Agnes.”

“I thought so too. Perhaps she thought we were being a bit dense.”

“Yeah, well. I can be thick-headed at times.”

Aziraphale frowned. “Please don’t disparage yourself. If this is about before, I told you-“

Crowley waved it off. “Yeah, it was both our faults, I get it. All part of the learning process.” He sighed. “It was easier before, wasn’t it? We weren’t always tripping over each other…didn’t have to worry about all this…feelings stuff. At least, not like this.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Aziraphale said. He sat down on his chair and folded his hands, fidgeting with his thumbs. “I’ll take the unfamiliar territory, even with the ‘feelings stuff.’ It’s a lot better than worrying about whether or not I was going to Fall because of how I felt about you.”

Crowley stared at him, half in awe and half in horror. “You…thought…?”

Aziraphale didn’t meet his eyes. “I didn’t just fall in love with you when we had sex, you know. It’s been a very long time coming. You winning me over, bit by bit, without even realizing it. And I was so scared. For centuries, I was so scared. I thought, if I fell far enough, He would cast me out.”

“What changed?” Because something had to have changed. Crowley couldn’t bear the thought that Aziraphale was still frightened of loving him.

“First, I realized the depth of my love for you. It wasn’t even anything important. We were at the Ritz, as usual, and there was something about the way your smile caught in the sunlight, and I thought to myself, ‘well Aziraphale, this is it. You love him more completely than you’ve ever loved anything else, and there’s no going back now.’ And nothing happened. You kept smiling, and I kept loving you, and I still didn’t Fall. I assumed, after that, that if He had cared, I would have been cast out by then.” Aziraphale paused and took a deep breath. “And then, later, I thought it might not matter.”

Crowley blinked. Then he blinked again. “Thought what might not matter?”

“Falling,” Aziraphale said, like it was the simplest thing in the world, although he still wouldn’t look at Crowley. “It was the end, and yes I was doing it for myself and for Earth, but I was also doing it for you, and it occurred to me that maybe this would be it. Maybe this would be His final straw. And I realized I didn’t care. If Falling was the price I paid, it would have been worth it.”

Bile rose in Crowley’s throat even though there was nothing in his stomach. “Don’t…don’t…”

Aziraphale looked up sharply, and behind his eyes was all the fire and fury of Heaven, the angelic warrior he had once been, however briefly. “I love being an angel,” he said fiercely. “But I would give it up, all of it, for-“

The last word was cut off. Crowley had bolted across the room, heedless of the cards beneath his feet, and covered Aziraphale’s mouth with his hand. The angel blinked at him in surprise, and Crowley shook his head desperately. “Don’t you ever say that again, do you hear me? I don’t ever want to hear that.”

Aziraphale wrapped long, beautifully manicured fingers around Crowley’s wrist, and withdrew the hand from across his mouth. “Oh, my dear boy,” he breathed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that would upset you so.”

“You should be you,” Crowley said. “And you’re an angel.”

“Maybe so. But I’m not just an angel, am I?” Aziraphale handled him like a piece of porcelain, drawing Crowley down. Crowley knelt at the angel’s feet, staring up at him as if about to receive diving intervention. In a way, he was. “You’re a part of me,” Aziraphale said. “You have been, metaphorically speaking, for quite a while, and now you are _literally_.” He cupped Crowley’s face between his hands. “There is more to me than being an angel, just as there is more to you than being a demon. We are not merely vessels for Heaven and Hell. We are…”

“Ineffable?”

Aziraphale smiled. “Exactly. Ineffable.” He brushed a stray lock of hair out of Crowley’s face. “We don’t have to speak of it if you don’t want. I know talking about Falling is difficult for you. But I did want you to know, if it came to that, you were worth it.”

If not for Aziraphale’s hands, Crowley would have looked away. As it was, he cast his eyes down. They landed on Aziraphale’s stomach. They had children on the way. The reminder, as always, lightened something inside his chest. “Does this mean you’re not mad at me anymore?” he asked, lifting his eyes to meet Aziraphale’s again. “I can come back?”

Aziraphale nodded. Then he amended, “Under one condition.”

“Anything.”

“You can fuss a little bit if you must, but you must listen to me if I ask you to desist. We’ve never existed in close quarters like this before, and I’d hate to ruin everything by finding out that we really aren’t compatible housemates.”

“Duly noted.” Crowley stood up. He meandered his way over to the squashy sofa, a respectably distance away from Aziraphale’s work station, and sank down into the sea of cushions. “By the way,” he said, remembering what he had come over for in the first place, “Anathema had a question for you. What are your thoughts on baby showers?”

Aziraphale blinked. “You mean, like a party?”

Crowley nodded.

Aziraphale looked around at the blanket of paper strewn about the room. He nudged a few of the cards Crowley had disturbed back into place with his toe. “Er…I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

Crowley leaned back into the cushion and watched his angel become reabsorbed in his work. Eventually, he got up and made two cups of cocoa. One he kept for himself, and the other he set in a tiny unoccupied sliver of the angel’s desk, squeezing Aziraphale’s shoulder as he passed. Aziraphale leaned back into the touch and murmured a distracted thanks. Crowley smiled. Things were looking up.

 

[1] Although Crowley didn’t know it, Aziraphale had read several books on plant care and come around to water them while Crowley had been asleep. Like Crowley, Aziraphale had spoken to them, although unlike Crowley his words were kind. The plants had decided they liked this better and bloomed all the more beautifully as a hint.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anathema throws a baby shower.

Crowley was wearing two party hats: one pink, one blue, and both perched on his head like a pair of horns. He was starting to remember why Hell had an entire torturing department dedicated solely to baby showers.[1]

It wasn’t as bad as it could have been. No one in attendance, save for perhaps Brian, was really the ‘cooing over babies’ sort. Most of them were barely the ‘parties’ sort, which explained why Jasmine Cottage looked more like it was hosting a casual barbeque/picnic than a proper baby shower. It was a hot summer day, and Aziraphale’s eyes had nearly jumped out of his head when he’d seen Crowley come downstairs in a linin suit. He’d cleared his throat with a cough. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in white before.”

Crowley had shrugged and grinned. “Wasn’t exactly allowed before, what with Hell and everything. You can get into all sorts of trouble down there, wearing white. But I always did think it was cool.”

And although temperature didn’t actually affect either Crowley or Aziraphale, Crowley was very glad of the suit. He could sense the hotness in the air, and just looking at Aziraphale, wrapped in at least three, if not four layers, beige or otherwise, was enough to make him think about sweating. Aziraphale looked quite unbothered by the whole thing, smiling and chatting with Anathema as he sipped tea from one of her once-plastic-now-china teacups. She’d have a complete set if she kept giving the angel a different cup every time he came around, which was precisely her intention.

When they’d first walked up the path to the cottage, Brian had come hurtling down the steps and nearly bowled them over. He’d asked if he could feel Aziraphale’s stomach, completely undeterred by the fact that it showed no visible signs of pregnancy, and the slightly alarmed look Aziraphale had given him, coupled with Crowley’s withering glare, had been enough to keep him – and anyone else – from asking again.

Anathema couldn’t stop staring. “It’s been nearly twelve months,” Crowley heard her saying to Aziraphale. “I don’t know, I expected… _something_.”

Something knocked into Crowley’s shin and he looked down. Dog, still small but much older than he remembered it,[2] was bowing in the grass in front of him. Its tail was stuck up and wagging, and it occasionally cocked its head, or else jumped up for a moment and bumped into him before resuming the stance. Crowley glanced around.

“Dog likes you,” said Adam, appearing out of nearly nowhere a few feet to Crowley’s left. “He doesn’t like Aziraphale much. That’s why I stopped bringing him ‘round the bookshop.”

“It’s the demonic influence,” Crowley said. “Hellhounds dislike angels on instinct.” That wasn’t strictly true, of course. Hellhounds, on instinct, loathed angels with a fierce and burning passion, and would as soon tear one to shreds as look at it. Dog, on the other hand, had not been especially hellish in a very long time, and so kept to jumping in angry circles around Aziraphale’s feet, biting at his ankles, and urinating on things that smelled like him.

“He’s been alright since Aziraphale got pregnant, though,” Adam noted, as Dog realized that playing with Crowley was a lost cause and gave up, trotting over to the patio table Aziraphale, Brian, and Anathema were clustered around in the hope of head scratches. For Dog, it was slightly confusing. The angel still smelled like angel, but he also smelled like a place he’d once called home, and Dog couldn’t quite wrap his tiny dog brain around it, and so settled for accepting Aziraphale’s stroking hands with hardly a growl.

“And how have you been?” Crowley asked. His sunglasses were coloured today – the black hadn’t gone with the linin suit – and they bathed the antichrist in a fiery glow. “Keeping out of trouble?”

Adam nodded. “One year left to go at university. Then I expect I’ll come back here.” He studied Crowley. “You sure you and Aziraphale don’t want to move to Tadfield? Lots of big homes around here, with good lawns for kids to play outside.”

“We’re sure,” he said again, although he thought privately that between his own penchant for sleeping and Aziraphale’s for reading, it would be a miracle if the children were interested in the outdoors at all.

The garden gate banged open, and Pepper called out, “Sorry I’m late! Traffic was a bitch.”

“Pepper, my dear,” said Aziraphale, rising to greet her. He had called her Pippin precisely once, with the rationale that there was nothing wrong with a proper first name, and had subsequently earned a reaction that helped him to understand the nickname. “So glad you could make it.”

They hugged, and when they separated, Aziraphale asked, “No Elizabeth? I was rather hoping to meet the young lady.”

Pepper gave half a shrug and glanced at Anathema. “I wasn’t sure she was invited, what with the secrecy and all. She dropped me off. I expect she’ll hang around with Mum and Dad most of the day.”

 Adam glanced across the garden at Damian. This was why he’d told his boyfriend about all the relevant bits very early on, after consulting with Aziraphale. He hadn’t explicitly mentioned that his so-called uncles were an angel and a demon, but he had felt it only fair to let Damian know he’d be dating the antichrist. A lot of the rest, he suspected, Damian had worked out on his own.

He was currently talking to Wensleydale about pet insurance.

“I can’t remember the last time we all got together like this,” Brian said as Pepper took a seat and Aziraphale settled back in his. “It’s been, what, a couple years?”

“We’ve all been busy,” Pepper agreed. “It’s nice, though. Seeing everyone in one place.” She looked over at Crowley and tilted her head appraisingly. “So that’s him, huh? Your…whatever he is.”

Aziraphale turned in his chair, and anyone who was looking at him, Crowley included, was treated to a blinding smile, like the sunlight purified and reflected out the angel’s eyes. “Yes. That’s Crowley. My…” He stopped. His smile turned into a contemplative frown. “You know, I don’t know what he is, really. In human terms.”

Everything froze. Not really, of course. Dog flopped over onto his back and twitched, whining for belly rubs. The clouds continued to drift across the sky, and the birds continued to sing. Beyond the hedges, the occasional car rumbled by. But all conversation within the garden halted. Crowley and Adam looked back towards the table, both wondering what the fuss, or lack thereof, was about. Even Damian and Wensleydale turned. Newt, who’d been skulking awkwardly near the food, had already been silent.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” said Pepper, who had the least concerns about being blunt.

“We never really discussed it.”

“Never…discussed it,” Anathema repeated.

Aziraphale shrugged. “We were enemies for quite a long time and then we were friends. Now I’m having his children. I don’t suppose friends is an acceptable label, but as I said, we never discussed it. It never even occurred to me.”

The silence was that of about half a dozen people having their Earths shattered. “You mean to say,” Anathema said eventually, “that we’ve all been wondering if you two were a couple or not for over a decade, and you don’t even know yourself?”

Aziraphale blinked and looked at Crowley. The demon was listening intently with the same surprise and contemplation that Aziraphale felt. “I suppose not,” he said. “Crowley?”

Crowley shoved his hands in his pockets, attempting to appear more nonchalant than he felt. “I don’t know,” he said. “What’s a good word for ‘fell in love over the course of 6000 years but were too stupid to do anything about it until we ended up being co-parents?’”

Nobody answered.

“I’ve always liked the term ‘partners,’” Aziraphale offered eventually.

“Bit professional, though,” Crowley pointed out. “Boyfriends?”  

“Too juvenile. And neither of us is a boy.”

“Husbands, then?”

“We’re not married.”

Crowley shrugged. “Nah, but people are bound to think we are, raising kids together and all. And it’s not like we haven’t been committed.”

Aziraphale gave that due consideration. “That’s true. Although I’d rather not have a wedding, if it’s all the same too you.”

“God, no,” Crowley said. “Too much bother. We’ve got better things to do than human traditions, anyway.” He glanced around at the other party guests, who were still locked in dumbfounded silence. “No offense.” They did not reply.

“Husbands it is, then,” Aziraphale said. “Although…” He fidgeted with his hands, rubbing the ring finger thoughtfully.

“What, you need me to actually pop the question?” Crowley teased.

Aziraphale flushed and shrugged. “It would be nice.”

“Alright, then.” Crowley glanced around for something, and then pulled off his sunglasses. He snapped one of the temples off and bent it into a rough, coiled circle. He could have miracled a ring, true, but it wouldn’t have been the same. He got down on one knee. “Marry me, angel?”

“Of course,” Aziraphale said pleasantly, and accepted the makeshift ring. It spiralled around his ring finger like a snake, and he held it up to the light, admiring the glint.

“I’ll get you a proper one later,” Crowley promised.

“What just happened?” said Anathema.

“I think they just got married,” said Pepper.

“Congratulations,” said Newt.

Aziraphale looked up at him and beamed at him. “Thank you, Newton.” Crowley stood up and brushed grass stains off his knees. He felt rather pleased with himself. Between one blink and the next, his glasses had repaired themselves, and he slid them back over his eyes.

Slowly, the humans shook themselves from their daze. Aziraphale sipped his tea and leaned down to give Dog a friendly pat. Crowley turned back to Adam. “You were telling me about university, then?”

Adam gave him two long, slow blinks. Then he said, “Yeah. I was.” And he started in again.

At the table, Aziraphale inquired after Pepper’s roller derby league, and Pepper launched into a lengthy story involving a fight over locker space, an awful lot of chewing gum, and a hospital visit. The afternoon stretched on.

Baby showers, traditionally speaking, usually include gifts provided for the couple by their friends, with the intent that such presents should help cover whatever baby items the parents might not have thought to buy. Aziraphale had not thought about buying anything for the children, and Crowley had thought about it quite a bit, but hadn’t actually gone ahead and gotten anything, partly because he’d guessed wrong about every other aspect of the children’s development thus far and partly because he wasn’t sure where they’d put it. Everyone else, upon hearing that Aziraphale had okayed the baby shower, had also but quite a bit of thought into it. On the whole, they had similarly come up blank. When the time for present opening did arrive, Aziraphale unwrapped a set of derby onesies from Pepper, a box of good luck charms and baby monitors from Newt and Anathema, a handful of model kits from Wensleydale, and some baby leashes and harnesses from Adam and Damian.[3] The only one who seemed to have a solid – and enthusiastic – clue was Brian. He’d gotten them a series of children’s books (“Even baby angel-demons ought to learn how to read”) and sort of sling meant for wearing a child against your chest and back (“Because if there’s seven of them, you’ll need as many hands free as you can get.”).

“Thank you all, so much,” Aziraphale said politely. “You really didn’t need to.”

“It’s tradition,” Brian said. “We all figured we ought to get you _something_.”

“Brian’s just trying to suck up, so you make him your top babysitter,” Pepper teased. Brian flushed, but did not deny it.

There was also cake. Devil’s food, of course, which made Aziraphale laugh, although Crowley was more partial to red velvet, and white icing with the word “congratulations” etched into it in red. The o’s had little halos, and the g was made out to look like a tail. Newt had made it. Apparently, an oven was not technologically advanced enough to break under his touch.

“Have you picked out names yet?” Damian asked while they were eating.

“Not yet,” Aziraphale said. “Crowley keeps suggesting things like Malachi and Tabitha, but I’m not sure I like those.”

“I still think they’re better than _Angelica_ ,” Crowley shot back. “Honestly, angel, really? You might as well have suggested de-Monica.”

Aziraphale stiffened, a touch affronted. “It was just a suggestion.”

Crowley wrapped his arms around Aziraphale’s shoulders and kissed the top of his head. “We’re still deciding,” he told the crowd at large. “They’ve got to feel right, you know?” He didn’t add that he wasn’t sure how it was supposed to _feel right_ when he wasn’t the one who’d gotten to meet the kids.

“We have time,” Aziraphale agreed. He set down his plate and leaned back into Crowley’s embrace. They’d touched before the pregnancy, of course, but not nearly as much as they did now. For a being of love like Aziraphale, it was tangibly satisfying. And it didn’t hurt that the children lit up inside him any time they felt Crowley’s touch.

“How do you know?” asked Anathema. “It’s coming up on a year already…for all you know, they could come any day now. They could come today.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Aziraphale had deciphered as much of Agnes’s book as he thought he could get in one sitting – hence why he was no longer pouring over it – and was fairly confident he’d located the one about the date of birth.

**[345]: When whyte the blackened filds be, and faith sings through the air, and harts turn with love and greed in equal measure, and afire be thy house, but not shall burn the pyne, then sharl it be tyme.**

“Christmas!” Crowley had cackled when Aziraphale had showed him. “Oh, they have a crack sense of timing, they do. Are we _sure_ one of them isn’t Jesus?” Aziraphale had narrowed his eyes and reminded Crowley that, according to Gabriel at least, Jesus had been born in September.

But he didn’t share any of that with Anathema. She’d been doing so well without prophecies. It seemed a shame to tease her with them again.

Instead, he said, “It’s getting late. I’m sure you’d all rather be getting home.” Crowley gave him a questioning look. It could hardly be called evening yet. The sun wasn’t anywhere close to the horizon. The other party guests echoed the look. None of them lived especially far away, and it wasn’t like they had anywhere to be.

Aziraphale blushed. There was a squirming in his gut, a sense of unease that threatened to make him nauseous. “Ah, what I mean is, I’m very tired. Pregnancy and all. I’d hate to fall asleep in your yard. That wouldn’t be especially gracious of a party-guest, would it?”

And understanding smile affixed itself to Anathema’s face. “Of course,” she said. “Don’t feel you have to stay on our account. Although anyone who wants to is welcome.”

Wensleydale and Pepper chose to leave. Adam, Damian, and Brian stayed.

In the Bentley, Crowley turned to Aziraphale. “You don’t get tired. Not even with the pregnancy.”

“Yes, well…” Aziraphale shifted in his seat, pulling the party hat – his was blue – from his head. Crowley removed his as well and tossed them in the backseat. “I have the strangest feeling. Like there’s something…wrong.”

Crowley’s eyes widened, and Aziraphale hurried on before he could become frantic. “Not with the children. They feel fine. Well,” he amended, “ _they’re_ the ones feeling strange. They seem…highly perceptive. Being unborn and all.”

“Right.” Crowley forced himself to take a deep breath. “Any idea what it is they think is going to happen?” Aziraphale shook his head. “Right,” Crowley said again, no less tense, and put the car into reverse.

Aziraphale had never seen him adhere to the speed limit so well.

“I think you’re being a touch dramatic,” he told Crowley as the demon opened his door for him and helped him onto the pavement. “You’re looking at me like I’m about to spontaneously combust.” He gave Crowley a look when he tried to help him up the stairs as well. “Everything’s fine, really.” He pushed open the door to his flat and stepped inside, stopping and turning to face the demon. “It’s just a feeling, that’s all.”

Behind him, the room burst into a blaze of light. “What’s just a feeling, Aziraphale?” asked an icy, well-educated voice, and Aziraphale felt his blood run cold.

 

[1] It couldn’t just be rings of fire and lakes of ice, after all. What with their movies and video games and the _news_ , humans were becoming so desensitized to actual violence.

[2] Although not as old as a dog of his age ought to look

[3] “In case they start to fly away,” Adam had explained with a shrug. “This way you don’t have to chase after them.” Crowley and Aziraphale had exchanged looks but thanked them all the same.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley and Aziraphale decide to move.

When Aziraphale froze, Crowley shoved his way past and pushed the angel protectively behind him. He was tall enough that, when he flared his wings, blocking the doorway, he obscured Aziraphale entirely from view. He’d only met the Metatron once, but he recognized the voice, if not the glowing blue pillar of light. He bared his teeth and hoped he looked fierce. Or, at least, fierce enough.

“What are you doing here?” he snarled. “No one summoned you.”

“We are here for Aziraphale,” the Metatron said testily. “You did not think we would let him go so easily, did you? Especially knowing he would undoubtedly run to _you_ , demon.”

The kids. Crowley’s heart stopped. The Metatron was here for the kids. He threw a hand back on instinct, barring a still-frozen Aziraphale, although his wings were doing a much better job. “I’m not going to let you hurt-“

“Why would we hurt Aziraphale?” the Metatron cut in, annoyed. “He is good breeding stock. He will be taken back to Heaven, and Gabriel will sire with him many strong children.”

Crowley blinked. He glanced over his shoulder at Aziraphale, who looked equally surprised. “Gabriel?” Aziraphale asked. “The archangel?”

“Yes.”

“I had no idea…” Aziraphale flushed slightly. “I mean, he’s…”

“Strong. Virile. He can satisfy your heat. We imagine, after a year, it is getting nearly unbearable for you.”

Crowley, who had rankled at Aziraphale’s reaction to the mention of Gabriel, finally caught up at the same time Aziraphale did. “My heat,” said Aziraphale. “Ah, yes. My heat.” He moaned theatrically, and rather unconvincingly. “It’s terrible. Just awful. I can hardly stand it.”

“But he’s not going with you,” Crowley snapped, just managing to avoid rolling his eyes at Aziraphale’s mediocre theatrics. “He’s staying with me.”

“A demon cannot satisfy an angel. You cannot provide the relief he needs. Gabriel-“

“Sod Gabriel,” growled Crowley, who was more than a little fed up with talking about Gabriel. He didn’t add that he was clearly just as virile as Gabriel, clearly just as able to satisfy Aziraphale, considering _he_ was the one who’d managed to get the angel pregnant, but it was a near thing. “Aziraphale’s staying here, and you can’t do anything about it.”

The Metatron was silent for a moment, a pulsing pillar of ethereal light. Then it said, “For now. But we will not wait forever for Aziraphale to come to us. If he does not make the right decision soon, we may decide to come for him.” The light disappeared, leaving the flat darker than before.

Crowley winched in his wings and rounded on Aziraphale, lifting a slightly irritated eyebrow. “Gabriel?”

Aziraphale’s flush deepened. “Well, I did have something akin to a crush on him once. He is very attractive-“ He took a look at Crowley’s face and cut himself off. “Please don’t be jealous, my dear. I chose you, remember?” He wiggled his ring finger.

Crowley sulked anyway. “Would you still have picked me if you knew it was him? Not some random angel but-“

“I will always pick you,” Aziraphale said firmly. “And you ought to know that by now.”

Crowley sighed. “Sometimes I still wonder.”

“I thought demons were supposed to be prideful. You have a remarkably low opinion of yourself, my darling.”

“Yeah, well. I was never all that good of a demon. Not like that.”

Aziraphale pulled him close and held him tight. “The good news,” he murmured, “is that Heaven doesn’t know I’m pregnant. And if Heaven doesn’t, Hell almost certainly won’t.”

“That’s the good news,” said Crowley, pulling out of Aziraphale’s embrace. He stalked across the flat and dropped onto the sofa. The cushions let out a loud whump. “The bad news is, they can pop in anytime they want, and sooner or later they’re not going to take no for an answer.”

“They’re going to be able to track me wherever I go, if they really want to,” Aziraphale pointed out. He gingerly took a seat in the adjacent armchair. “Even without performing miracles. The host will be able to sense my presence, especially as the children get more powerful. And once Hell starts looking…”

“There’s got to be something,” said Crowley, who was struggling to think of anything of use. “Some kind of…angel warding or something.”

The look Aziraphale levelled at him was scornful, or it would have been if his face wasn’t filled with concern. “Angel warding that doesn’t affect me?”

“A spell, then. Something Anathema can do.”

This look was even more severe. “Witchcraft doesn’t work like that and you know it.”

“Well, we should at least make an effort.” Crowley drummed his fingers against his knee. “We could move.”

Aziraphale bristled. He’d grown accustomed to his flat and bookshop, and he disliked the idea of parting from it. “What, to your flat? Just leave my books-“

“Not to my flat,” Crowley said, remembering the spot on the office carpet and the distinctly not-kid-friendly modern decor. He hesitated. “I’ve actually been thinking about this for a little while now. Neither of us really has the space for seven kids. I was thinking…bigger house…still in London, but maybe more on the outskirts. A bit of a yard. Maybe a library for your books.”

Aziraphale stared at him. Very slowly, he said, “You’re suggesting we avoid Heaven by…moving to the suburbs?”

“Well, they’re not technically suburbs outside of America.” Crowley rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “But, er. Yeah. I am. What do you think?”

Aziraphale glanced around the flat. He sighed. “I’ll have to close the bookshop anyway, I suppose.”

“It’s not like you ever really meant to _sell_ anything,” Crowley pointed out.

“True.” Aziraphale leaned back, feeling abruptly heavy. “I suppose you’ll want to miracle us a house?”

“God, no,” Crowley said. “We ought to keep miracles to a minimum, I reckon. At least until we can sort out a way to keep Heaven and Hell off our arses. Nah, there’s always some house or another for sale. I’m sure we’ll be able to find something that works.”

“No miracles means buying things,” Aziraphale pointed out, with only a little smugness. “That means getting a job.”

“Nah.” Crowley grinned at him. “I’ve got plenty of investments over the years. How do you think I afford a flat in central London?”

“I assumed you just sort of…made the rent disappear.”

Crowley snorted. “I wish. No, I wanted it to look legit. Trust me, angel, neither of us will have to work for a long time if we don’t want to.” He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees and resting his chin on his hands. His grin widened. “I think you’ll make the cutest house-husband.”

Aziraphale lifted an indulgent, if slightly exasperated eyebrow. “Just because I have the expected genitalia for it does not mean I’m going to put on a dress with an apron and a string of pearls and fix you drinks.”

Crowley couldn’t resist wiggling his eyebrows. “Not even for my birthday?”

“We don’t have birthdays.”

“We could.”

Aziraphale gave his husband a look which said _you’re very lucky I love you because I doubt I’d be willing to put up with your ridiculousness otherwise_ and went to check on the book. He had several notes on prophecies he thought referred to Heaven and Hell. Maybe there’d be something of use.

House hunting is incredibly difficult even in the best of circumstances. First, you have to find a house that meets all of your requirements, or at least enough of them to make it worthwhile. For example, if you are planning to live in a house with half a dozen people, you’re bound to want several bedrooms and at least two bathrooms. If you are particularly interested in cooking, you might want a modern kitchen, or if you are more predisposed towards being outside you might want a very large yard with space for a garden. Assuming you can find such a house, it must also be a) for sale, b) within your price range, and c) not desired by any other people who may potentially buy it before you can get the money together. And if you are shopping with more than one person who will have a say in the decision, you have to agree.

Crowley and Aziraphale were having problems with the last bit. They’d seen several houses already, and there were plenty for sale, within their price range, and which Crowley was confident they could beat any other potential buyers to, should it come to that. Many of them even had the basic requirements of the sort of housing a demon, and angel, and their seven mixed children would require.[1] The issue was a matter of taste. For every one of Aziraphale’s top picks, which Crowley found too confining and modest, there was one of Crowley’s choices that Aziraphale deemed too extravagant.

“We don’t need to live in a mansion,” Aziraphale argued, heedless of the eavesdropping realtor. “Don’t you think this is a bit inconspicuous?”

“Better than living in a box,” Crowley snapped back. “We need space for _nine_ , angel, and it’s not like the Powers That Be are going to give a rat’s arse about _house size_.”

“No miracles,” Aziraphale reminded him. “Not until we’re sure we can stay hidden. Houses need to be kept clean. Are you going to be the one to do it? It’s not exactly wise to hire a maid.”

“I’ll put on the sodding apron and do it myself.” Crowley folded his arms. “What’s wrong with a bit of extravagance, hmm? You’re not exactly beholden to Heaven’s whims anymore. No need to live like a priest.” Not that Aziraphale tended to live like a priest; he just happened to like small, comfortable spaces rather than large and lavish ones.

Aziraphale opened his mouth, and then closed it again. He huffed, put out that Crowley had made a good point. “Surely there’s a compromise,” he said eventually. “Something…in the middle? Large enough to satisfy you, but not so ornate that I feel I’m living in a palace.”

“You liked it well enough in Arthur’s court,” Crowley pointed out, although it was more for the tease than anything else. “But alright.” He turned to look at the realtor, who straightened up and looked away, pretending to be engrossed with her clipboard. “Got anything like that?”

“Like what?” she said, full of faux-innocence. Crowley raised his eyebrows, unimpressed.

The end result was more than satisfactory for them both. It had eight bedrooms, because even if they, and by extension probably the children as well, didn’t strictly need sleep, it was always nice to have a private space for oneself; a library for Aziraphale’s books with a small reading nook just off it, with no windows so as to keep the books in better condition; a spacious garage with massive glass windows for Crowley’s Bentley; a large yard surrounded on all sides by hedges nearly five meters high, except for where they parted to make space for an equally tall wooden gate, which was painted black and which Aziraphale had already requested that Crowley paint a different colour (“It doesn’t have to be white, I’d just like something a bit less…dark.”); and a massive entryway with an admittedly palace-esque staircase that led up to equally spacious hallways on each of the other two floors, which could accommodate the wingspan of a grown angel, or demon, without knocking things off the walls. It was probably a bit fancier than Aziraphale would have preferred, but Crowley couldn’t have imagined a better house if he’d miracled it himself from the ground up.

“You’re sure you’re alright with it?” he asked again, just to be sure. “We could get something a little smaller if you really want.”

“I like it,” Aziraphale said, glancing around the entry hall. He settled a hand on his stomach and dropped his voice low enough so the realtor wouldn’t hear him. “More importantly, _they_ like it.”

“How can they tell?”

Aziraphale shrugged. “I don’t know. They just can. They’re clever like that. Intuitive.”

“Hmm.” Crowley bit back the familiar pang of jealousy and glanced towards the realtor. “We’ll take this one.”

She looked momentarily surprised. “You’re sure? I have a few more options we can-”

“This one,” Crowley said. His glare was chilly enough that even through his sunglasses she could feel it. “How soon can we have it?”

“Well, you’ll need to make a down payment and-“

“We’ve got the money,” Crowley said.

“Oh.”

“Do you want me to write you a check, or…?” Aziraphale had talked him out of paying in cash. He’d worried it would give the impression that they had something to hide, and Crowley had to admit he was right.

“I’ll just draw up the contracts,” the realtor said, flustered. “We can have you in by the end of the week, if you’d like.”

“Perfect.” Crowley smiled with all his teeth. “Got any recommendations for security companies?”

“You didn’t need to be quite so hard on her,” Aziraphale said when they were finished, driving back to his flat. “She’s just doing her job. And she seemed polite enough.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Crowley, watching the road carefully. “I was perfectly nice.”

“I believe that poor woman thought we were from the mob, the way you kept flashing about.” She had, in fact, believed that Crowley was probably involved with mobsters. She’d contemplated the thought that Aziraphale might be the bookkeeper, or possibly a kept boy. Aziraphale would probably have been flattered at the idea.

“Not my fault that humans watch too many movies,” Crowley said, and slowed down to match the new speed limit. Aziraphale eyed the speedometer but said nothing. He approved of Crowley’s new adherence to city ordinances, even if he wasn’t sure what had caused it.

 _New Owners_ , read the new sign on Aziraphale’s bookshop. Said new owners had been acquaintances of Aziraphale’s in the rare book industry, who had been thrilled at the prime piece of real estate opening up. They’d been less thrilled, but not at all surprised, to hear that Aziraphale was taking his entire collection with him.

They ascended the stairs. Most of Aziraphale’s things were in boxes already. Crowley’s flat was in a similar state, although even between the two of them Crowley knew they were going to need to buy a lot more furniture to fully furnish the new house. Ah well. They could worry about that later.

“Are we thinking a moving company?” he asked Aziraphale, who had wandered into his kitchen to make cocoa. “Or are we going to ask our friends for help?”

“It’s a bit short notice,” Aziraphale pointed out. “And a company would go much faster. Besides, you’ll be having the security men come in that day anyway. Might as well get all the strangers through at once, and be done with it.”

It was a fair point, and Crowley nodded, satisfied. He took the cocoa Aziraphale offered him and looked around the flat. Stacks of boxes clustered in the corners, filled to the brim with books and comfy pillows and such. More sat on the table, still flat and waiting to be popped open and filled. Domesticity, Crowley mused. Most demons wouldn’t be caught dead playing at it, partly because Hell could do an awful lot worse to them if they were. But Crowley wasn’t beholden to Hell anymore, and from where he was standing, it looked pretty good.

 

[1] The number of bathrooms was not a priority. Comfortable reading areas, a nice garage, and space for a top of the line security system were.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley has a dream.

When Crowley opened his eyes, he had a brief moment of panic, because he knew where he was. He ran his hands frantically down his sides, expecting scales, and then reminded himself that the mere fact he had _hands_ meant he wasn’t in snake form. He was in his body, in jeans and a leather jacket, although he did still have the snakeskin “shoes.” He squinted up at the sun and made to adjust his glasses, but found he wasn’t wearing any.

He looked around. Eden was as beautiful as it ever was. No storm clouds yet. No angels-yet-to-be-loved guarding the gates with flaming swords. Just clear blue skies and lush green foliage as far as the eye could see. Crowley wondered if he was dead – properly dead, not just discorperated – and then thought better of it. For one, he didn’t have any recollection of dying. For another, if he had died, and if demons ended up _anywhere_ when they died instead of just disappearing forever, he was reasonably certain that Paradise was not where he would go. Then he wondered if he was still in Eden in the Beginning, if everything he’d thought had followed it had been some sort of vision of the future, but he discarded that too. If that were the case, he almost certainly would not have been wearing jeans.

And then he heard it. His angel’s voice, ringing with laughter, and only a short distance away. Crowley followed it, and found Aziraphale seated under an apple tree, glowing like a beacon.

No. Aziraphale wasn’t the one glowing. At least, not any more than usual. It was just that he was surrounded by tiny balls of glowing light, rubbing up against his cheeks and shoulders like cats. As Crowley stared, Aziraphale looked up, and his grin split even wider. Several of the balls of light shot away from the angel, barrelling towards Crowley and hitting him square in the chest with surprising solidity. He stumbled backwards a step and cradled them on instinct. “Aziraphale, what the fuck is going on?”

“Language in front of the children,” Aziraphale scolded him gently. He got to his feet. There was a ball of light hiding in his curls, Crowley noted dumbly.

“Children?” he repeated, and then understood. His eyes widened, and he brought one of the lights that had tackled him up for inspection. It pulsed hot in his hand, heavier than light should have been, and… _cooed_. He smiled involuntarily.

“Are you really here, my darling? You aren’t usually when I dream about them.”

“I’m here,” Crowley said in disbelief. “I can’t…I mean, I wanted to, but…” He shook his head, grin widening, “I tried not to be, but I was so jealous that you’d gotten to meet our kids. I figured I’d have to wait until they were born but…they’re beautiful.”

“They are, aren’t they?” Aziraphale leaned against Crowley’s side as several of the lights went skidding off, chasing each other through the brush. “Seven’s a holy number, you know. Seven virtues-“

“Seven vices.”

“Seven days of creation.” Aziraphale rested his head on Crowley’s shoulder. “I’m glad you’re here. I never wanted you to be jealous.”

“Is it always Eden?” Crowley asked. He wrapped an arm around Aziraphale’s waist. “When you dream about them, I mean.”

“Yes, although I’m not sure why. It could be anywhere, really. It is a dream.”

“Do you think you picked it, or them?”

“Pardon?”

Crowley looked at Aziraphale. The light was still nestled in his hair. “They’re clever,” he said. “Maybe they picked Eden because when they saw it in your head, it felt safe.”

Thunder rumbled in the distance, and Crowley’s stomach sank. Aziraphale looked unperturbed. “Or maybe they picked it because it’s where we met,” he said. “They wanted to be close to both of us.”

Raindrops began to splatter down, in small drips at first and then all at once. The light in Aziraphale’s hair let out a chirp of distress, and Crowley scooped it out and tucked it under the cover of his jacket. “It’s alright,” he told it, hustling Aziraphale under the tree with him. “It’s just a bit of rain.”

The other six lights rejoined them, huddling around their parents and occasionally letting out little trills. There was the sound of more thunder, but if there was any lightning it was a long way off.

“It’s never rained here before,” Aziraphale said.

“I’ve never been here before,” Crowley sighed. The light in his hand beeped indignantly and snuggled closer to him. Crowley clutched it tight to his heart and let it burn there.

“A daddy’s boy already,” Aziraphale murmured, amused.

“Never say that again,” Crowley nudged Aziraphale with his shoulder. “Besides, you were the one saying not to gender the kids before they’re old enough to understand it.”

“Yes, but there’s no gender neutral equivalent for-“

“Please don’t say ‘daddy’ again.” Crowley shuddered, and the lights trilled with laughter. “Dad, sure.”

“We never did discuss that,” said Aziraphale. “What they were going to call us, I mean.”

“I’m assuming you don’t want to be Mum.”

“I would prefer not.”

Crowley leaned back against the tree. The bark scratched at his skin. “You seem like the Father sort. You know, all prim and proper. Like something out of a Victorian novel.”

“I do like that,” Aziraphale agreed.

“I can be Dad. Nothing fancy.”

“But not Daddy?” Aziraphale said with a grin.

Crowley elbowed him. “You’re doing it on purpose, aren’t you?”

“I just think it’s funny that it bothers you so. Humans taint words all the time. I’d have thought you’d be used to it.”

“Yeah, well…” Crowley didn’t have a good answer for that, so he stopped bothering to look for one. The rain came down around them, but under the tree they were untouched, warm and dry. A few of the lights crept to the edge of the shelter, popping in and out of the rain curiously. Crowley and Aziraphale watched them.

“It was raining when we met,” Aziraphale murmured. “I think about that every time it rains, you know. That first storm in Eden.”

“We didn’t even like each other yet,” said Crowley, who was having trouble thinking that far back. It was dangerously close to thinking about Before, and he didn’t like to do that if he could avoid it. Not in terms specific to him, anyway.

“But even then, we weren’t really enemies,” Aziraphale pointed out. “I should have fought you, flaming sword or no.”

“Why didn’t you?” asked Crowley. “I always wondered.”

Aziraphale shrugged. “No one told me to,” he said. “And you’d already done the temptation bit. It just…didn’t seem worth the effort. No real wiles to thwart, so to speak. Why didn’t you?”

“I dunno,” Crowley admitted. “Guess my heart wasn’t really in it. I made trouble, like they asked. Honestly, if I’d pulled something with an angel in those days I could probably have been made a duke or something. At least a knight. But I dunno.” He laughed a little, awkwardly. “I wish I could say there was something about you that made me not want to fight, some kind of intrinsic, ineffable pull of fate that made me think ‘not that one. That one’s not your enemy.’ But honestly, it wasn’t like that. I’d just done my bit, and you were there, and it didn’t really seem worth it to try anything else. No offense.”

“None taken.” Aziraphale was quite for a moment, and then he said, “I do remember thinking you weren’t what I expected, for a demon.”

“Oh?”

He nodded. “You weren’t hideous to look at, for one thing.”

“Thanks.”

“I mean it,” Aziraphale said. “I hadn’t met a demon before you, and based on what Heaven told me, I assumed you’d all be disgusting creatures, with vile auras and whatnot. You were just…sort of normal. Aura a little darker than mine and all, but on the whole nothing particularly nasty. I’ve met other demons by now, of course, and a lot of them have far more unsettling auras than you.”

“The snake thing didn’t bother you?”

“Should it have?” Aziraphale sounded legitimately surprised by the question, like it hadn’t occurred to him before. “I just assumed it was part of your nature. There are worse creatures out there than snakes, appeal-wise. And you did always have rather magnificent scales.” He smiled at Crowley, and the fondness in his expression was almost enough to make Crowley look away. As it was, he blushed. “Of course, it would be the eyes I really fell in love with later. Beautiful things, even if you don’t think so.”

He didn’t, but Crowley didn’t say that. The light by his heart squirmed and snaked up his chest, settling against the juncture of his neck and shoulder in the hollow of his collarbone. The other six had decided that rain was actually good fun and were skidding about in the growing puddles.

“So which one’s this?” Crowley asked, indicating the one on his shoulder. “You’ve spent more time with them than me, and I’ve seen your list. Started pinning down names yet?”

“I rather thought something starting with ‘e.’ It feels right. Emmanuel or Evelyn, maybe.”

“We’re not naming any of the kids anything that can be shortened to Eve,” Crowley said. “Feels a bit tacky.”

“You met Eve,” said Aziraphale, with a pointed look up at the apple tree. “To my understanding, you rather liked her.”

“Yes, but we already know an Adam,” Crowley said. “And I’m sorry, but that’s always going to feel weird to me.”

“Fair enough.”

“Emmanuel’s not bad, though. Not quite right but…close.”

They sat in silence. Not-Emmanuel let out a sleepy sort of buzzing sound, and Crowley stroked a finger along what might have been its back. The rain continued to fall, but it lightened a little, into less of a downpour and more of a drizzle. A few apples fell from the tree, and Aziraphale picked one up and turned it over in his hands.

“What’s out there?” Crowley asked after a moment, gesturing to the wilderness beyond the clearing. “Is it like actual Eden?”

Aziraphale blinked and put the apple down. “You know, I actually don’t know. I usually just stay here, talking to them. Watching them play. I never considered going elsewhere.”

“Right then.” Crowley hauled himself to his feet and offered a hand to Aziraphale. “Fancy a little adventure?”

Aziraphale accepted the gesture and stood up too. When Crowley shook his wings out, he did the same, covering both of them in protection from the rain. The other lights zipped around their ankles as they approached, and then up to nestle about their shoulders. Crowley pushed his way through the undergrowth, wandering deeper into the forest.

Except, as he went farther, it started to look less and less like Eden. The trees changed and spread out. The rain stopped, and when Crowley looked up he saw that the light came from the moon, not the sun. “I know this place,” he said aloud. “Couple hundred years after we got to Earth, I think.”

Aziraphale looked blank. Crowley stopped, and then turned in a circle. His wings clipped a tree, and he pulled them in again. “Yeah,” he said. He pointed towards a cluster of boulders. “Over there. I’d gotten a bit lost on my way to…somewhere. Wherever Hell wanted me. And I stopped there, and you appeared.” Like a lighthouse in the storm, Crowley thought, although lighthouses hadn’t been invented yet. “I thought you were going to kill me, or at least try to, but you just gave me directions.”

The memory was coming back to Aziraphale too. “I did, didn’t I. That was the second time we’d met. I thought it odd, running into the same demon. But we were going to the same place, more or less. It made sense to guide you too.”

It really didn’t, but Crowley wasn’t about to press the issue. “Come on,” he said, and pushed on.

Eventually, the forest ended. A river snaked out alongside them, winding its way into a little town beyond the trees. A proper old-fashioned town, with only a few stone and wood buildings, with smoking chimneys and some barns in the distance alongside fields of wheat. At the centre of it all stood a pile of logs with a stake in the middle. Crowley’s stomach churned. The lights responded to the feeling, beeping and shifting. Not-Emmanuel crawled up into Crowley’s hair and hid there.

“Thirteenth century,” Aziraphale said softly, without any prompting. He reached over and took Crowley’s hand, gripping tight. Crowley closed his eyes and stopped breathing altogether to avoid hyperventilating. “I remember pulling you from the fire,” Aziraphale continued, and Crowley felt the flames lick against his skin. “You were already gone.”

“I don’t-“ Crowley’s throat was thick. “I don’t want to be here, please-“

Aziraphale made to respond, to soothe him and look for a way past, but then the world was spinning abruptly around them, and when it settled again they were somewhere entirely different. He gave Crowley’s hand a squeeze. “Open your eyes.”

Crowley obeyed. It was London. Or, it had been. It _sounded_ like London, with people calling to each other and horses clopping down the cobblestone roads and carriages rolling past, which was interesting because there wasn’t a person in sight. It was uncanny. “You used to live on this street,” he said, swallowing hard as his stomach started to settle again. “Parents kept introducing their daughters to you hoping you’d marry one of them.”

“You wore those lovely tailcoats,” Aziraphale said dreamily, like he was remembering. “And the soldier uniform…”

“Yeah, well.” Crowley coughed. “Stirring up trouble with soldiers is easy. And I got to visit you on the weekends.” He was also remembering Aziraphale in tails – not that the angel’s current attire was that much more modern, but there was something to be said about a well-tied cravat around that pale throat – and trying to suppress any feelings about it that weren’t appropriate to feel in front of the kids.

“Were you jealous?” Aziraphale asked.

“Of what?”

“My suitors.”

“Oh. Nah, not really.” Crowley stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I might have been, if you showed any interest in any of them. But you might as well have been a priest. As it was, everyone started to think you were a dandy.”

“Well, they weren’t entirely wrong,” said Aziraphale, who was well aware that people had assumed he was gay for most of his 6000 years on Earth, and who had more often than not encouraged that image. “You had a few of your own, didn’t you? Suitors, I mean. Young women.”

“No one serious,” said Crowley. “Just a bunch of girls who liked a man in uniform.”

They strolled down the street.

“I’m not sure it’s the kids picking the location,” Crowley said when they reached the end of it. “I think it’s more dream logic. Picking things out of your subconscious. They’re not memories. There’d be other people in them if they were memories.”

Aziraphale looked around. They were at a crossroads, but he couldn’t actually make out what lay down each path. Neither could Crowley. “I think you’re right,” Aziraphale said. The children weren’t particularly interested in either direction; they’d busied themselves with hiding in the pockets of Crowley’s jacket and tugging on his hair. Every so often Crowley’s hand would brush one of them absentmindedly, as if subconsciously checking that they hadn’t fallen off.

“Which way, then?” Crowley asked.

Aziraphale picked left.

It brought them back to Eden and the apple tree. The rain had finished, although the grass was still damp, and it sparkled in the sunlight. The children, save one, raced off, brightened by the familiar surroundings, and, Crowley thought, slightly larger than they’d been when he’d first arrived in the dream. “We’re back,” he said.

“It appears so.”

Crowley scuffed at the dirt with his foot. In his hair, not-Emmanuel cooed and bounced, and Crowley reached up and scooped the light into his palm, cradling it to his chest.

“Are you alright?” asked Aziraphale.

“Yeah,” Crowley said. “Just…why those places? I know you’ve seen loads.”

“They were all places that meant something to the both of us,” Aziraphale offered. “Places where, despite all sense, we didn’t fight, even when we ought to have.” He took the light from Crowley, kissed it, and sent it off with its siblings. “We defied a lot of odds, getting to this point. There were so many times where it could have gone wrong, but it didn’t.”

“Could still go wrong,” Crowley pointed out. “Heaven. Hell. Incompatibility.”

“If we weren’t compatible, I expect we’d know that by now,” Aziraphale said. He gave Crowley’s hand another squeeze. “As for the rest of it, those worries will still be there when we wake up. Go play with the children. They’re so excited to finally meet you.”

A while later, Crowley woke up in bed – the one from Aziraphale’s flat, not his own, the fourposter with the white silk sheets – wrapped around the angel’s back. Aziraphale stirred slightly in his embrace, and Crowley splayed his fingers over Aziraphale’s stomach. There might not have been a baby bump, but there was a warmth glowing beneath his hand. Crowley smiled, kissed Aziraphale’s cheek, and untangled himself from his husband. He slid out of bed, stretched, and made his way downstairs so as not to disturb the angel’s slumber. He deserved it.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley and Aziraphale have a discussion about parenting.

“It’s a nice house,” Anathema offered, craning her neck to look at the ceiling. “The security seems a little much.”

There were cameras on the gate, every entrance and exit to the house, and a few other key places inside it. There was an intercom, and nearly every room had a panic button of some kind to invoke protective measures. Crowley had let Aziraphale handle the holy water. There was also a row of horseshoes now tacked to the top of the gate, and a scrawl of ancient sigils scratched along the bottom, which collectively discouraged any being occult or ethereal from entering so long as it was shut. What Anathema called “a little much,” Crowley and Aziraphale called “the bare minimum.”

“That’s actually part of why we asked you over,” Aziraphale admitted. “Now that Heaven doesn’t have my address, it will take a little longer for them to find me, but eventually they will be looking, and if they find out about the children…” He closed his eyes, banished the thought, and opened them again. He continued, “I know it’s a long shot, but you wouldn’t happen to have any sort of magical abilities that could, say, make us invisible to Heaven and Hell? Without causing us personal harm, of course.”

Anathema thought it over. “Well, the charms I gave you should be a start.”

“Already done.” Aziraphale lifted his hand, displaying his new ring. It looked an awful lot like the old one, except shinier, and more deliberately snake-like. Some of the crystals had been inlaid into its back, and also set as eyes. Crowley now had a ring as well, and his was designed to look like a pair of wings, set against each other and ringed in a protective circle reminiscent of a halo, set with tiny crystals of his own. The rest of the charms had been tucked away in each of the house’s rooms, and inside the Bentley.

Anathema admired the ring for a moment, and then said, “Well, beyond that there’s not much I can do. Any warding to shield against angels or demons, as far as I know, would hurt either you or Crowley. If you really want not to be tracked, I expect you’ll have to talk to someone a lot more occult than me.”

“Well, thank you anyway,” Aziraphale said. “Now, would you like a cup of tea? I’ve just gotten the hang of the new kitchen.”

They’d been living there for two weeks. Aziraphale had spent the first one fighting with the stove. Crowley had banned him from the kitchen for a few days and made Aziraphale read the manual.

As Aziraphale and Anathema sat down to tea, Crowley was busy in the yard, watching Dog roll around in the grass and occasionally try to dig holes. Adam cocked his head thoughtfully. “I don’t really know how much help I can be,” he said. “When I was a kid, it wasn’t like I was _trying_ not to be found by Heaven and Hell. Aziraphale said it was subconscious, a side-effect of my powers. I’m not sure it even works for me anymore. I’ve no idea if I could make it work for you.”

Crowley sighed. He’d expected as much. Unlike during the End Times, he’d found he could sense Adam’s presence, if he was deliberately looking for it, but he hadn’t been sure if the change was universal, or applied only to Aziraphale and him.

He toyed with his ring. He was still getting used to wearing it, but he liked the way it looked against his hand. It’d taken quite a bit of money to have the jeweller make the pair of them so quickly, but he felt it was worth it.

“If it makes you feel better,” Adam said, “Aziraphale’s been putting out this weird energy.”

Crowley blinked and looked at him. “Weird how?”

Adam gave half a shrug. “It’s like his, whatcha-call-it, his _aura_ is different. Instead of being this glowing beacon of angelic light, it’s like…well, sort of looking at it through a prism. It bounces everywhere. ‘Spect it’s the kids doing it.”

Crowley hadn’t thought of that. “Is that good, then?”

“Makes him harder to look at head on,” Adam said, absently. He was watching Dog try to eat a stray weed. “Harder to think about, too, ‘cept in general terms. Works for you when you’re close by, too. I reckon that’s good. Sounds kind of like what you’re looking for, anyway.”

A warmth lodged itself in Crowley’s chest, tinged with relief. The children were protected, and by extension so were he and Aziraphale. There was no guarantee it would work on Heaven, or eventually on Hell, but it was a lot better than a few horseshoes and protective charms, no matter how much he liked his ring.

Dog finished with the weed. It hadn’t tasted very good, and he resolved to throw it up later, possibly on all that shiny linoleum in the front hall. He’d skidded quite a bit on it when he’d walked in earlier, and he wasn’t a fan. For the time being, he chased his tail in a few half-hearted circles, then bounded over to Crowley and reared up on his hind legs, putting his front paws on Crowley’s immaculate trousers. He whined, and let his tongue loll out of his mouth. Without looking very happy about it, Crowley gave Dog an awkward pat on the head and then pushed him off. “Would you like to stay for dinner?” he asked Adam. They had a bit of food in the fridge, and at least one of them was bound to be a half-decent cook.

“Thanks, but I ought to be heading out soon,” Adam said. “Promised my parents I’d visit more now it’s summer, and you were conveniently on the way.” He sniffed. “It’s not Tadfield, but it is nice, I’ll grant you.”

“We like it,” Crowley said. “Not too far from London, but not in the middle of everything either.” The only downside was the neighbours. In Crowley’s experience, in the city, neighbours tended to ignore one another, save for perhaps a cursory nod if they passed each other getting the mail. People in the countryside, or countryside-adjacent, were an entirely different animal. It was the boredom, Crowley expected. Three different housewives had knocked on the gate, completely undeterred by the intentional impenetrability of it, and tried to ask them ‘round for tea. Aziraphale had politely declined two of the invitations, and the third had been rescinded by the abruptly red-faced woman when Crowley had appeared over Aziraphale’s shoulder and called him “angel.” Those sort of people were everywhere, Crowley reasoned, and if he couldn’t miracle a problem or two at their house, he’d consider taking a night-time stroll and stealing their mail or slashing their tires. Maybe he’d borrow Dog sometime and have him poop on their front lawn. It was petty, but in Crowley’s opinion people like that deserved much worse. Aziraphale couldn’t abide by them either. “Love everyone,” he’d moaned one night, several decades ago, when they’d been getting sloshed at the angel’s flat. “That’s what He says to do. Even love your enemies.” He’d eyed Crowley, who had felt an abruptly sober moment of panic and changed the subject.

The point was, neighbours in the country liked to check up on you. It was a good job Heaven avoided the suburbs at all costs, and Hell didn’t feel the need to interfere any further than inventing them.

Crowley saw Adam off, although not before Dog had his chance to be sick all over the floor, and Anathema followed soon after. Aziraphale offered to help clean up, but Crowley waved him off with the promise that he’d take care of it, sans miracles. Crowley was thankful he didn’t have a gag reflex, and he silently promised himself that no matter what, he wouldn’t be getting the children a dog. He didn’t expect it was a promise he’d be able to keep, especially if pleading and sad eyes got involved, but he could pretend for now.

He found Aziraphale in the study, crooning to the line of houseplants that had migrated from Crowley’s flat. “You’re absolutely stunning,” he was saying, stroking the leaves reverently. “Such an exquisite shade of green. I hope you’ll have some flowers for me in the morning, you do look so lovely in bloom.”

Crowley leaned against the doorframe and folded his arms. “You’re going to spoil them,” he groused. “They need to know who’s the boss.”

“I don’t see why that requires being cruel.” Aziraphale gave the plant another spritz. “Respect through love, not fear.”

“Don’t see why I can’t have the fear,” Crowley mumbled. “Works just as well.”

Aziraphale stiffened momentarily. Crowley watched his Adam’s apple bob, and frowned. “Alright, angel?”

“Fine.”

“You’re gripping that trigger like a lifeline.” Crowley strode across the room and pulled the plant mister from Aziraphale’s hands, setting it aside. “Was it something I said?”

Aziraphale stepped out of reach. He wouldn’t look at Crowley. “It’s just something to think about, that’s all.” He pet the tassel of a spider-plant that Crowley would have scolded for shedding leaves. “We’re very different entities.”

Crowley blinked. “What, because I get a little mean with the house plants?”

“You believe in raising living things in a culture of fear.”

“They’re _houseplants_ , angel. They don’t have higher brain function. It’s just a stupid-“ Crowley cut himself off. He took a step back, like he’d been punched. “Hang on. You don’t think…I mean, you don’t really think I’d treat our kids like that, do you?”

“Love and respect for all living things means _all-“_

“For crying out loud, they’re-“

“They’re living things too!” Aziraphale snapped. “What am I supposed to think? You don’t like animals-“

“I just cleaned up dog sick without a fuss-“

“-and you treat your plants horridly-“

“It’s a stupid radio show I heard, it doesn’t mean-“

“Shut up!”

This time Crowley _felt_ like he’d been punched, even if he didn’t move. He couldn’t remember the last time Aziraphale had raised his voice at him. He didn’t think the angel was even capable of shouting like that. It echoed.

Aziraphale looked a bit surprised himself. He regained his composure and said icily, “Based on how I’ve seen you treat small creatures dependent on you, give me one good reason why I should believe our children will be any different.”

“Because they’re our _kids_.” Crowley resisted the urge to reach out. The air between them was frigid. “Come on, angel. You’ve seen me with them, remember?”

“Yes. In a dream, where they are still growing, metaphysical beings of light.” Aziraphale’s voice could have sliced diamonds. “What are you going to do when they’re tangible? When they disappoint you? You kill your plants for turning brown. What should I imagine will happen if one of our children does something you really don’t like?”

Crowley’s chest was tight. It was a horrible feeling. He stared at Aziraphale, helpless. “I know we don’t see eye to eye on everything, but you _have_ to know…just because I don’t have unconditional love for all living things doesn’t mean I’m not going to love our children with everything I’ve got.”

“I wish I could believe that.” Aziraphale was quiet a moment longer, and then turned on his heels. “I’m going to bed.” Crowley watched him leave the room.

He picked up the plant mister and looked at the plants. Without Aziraphale as a buffer, they shrank back from him, puffing up and trying to look fuller. Crowley’s throat swelled and clogged, and he swallowed around it. Gingerly, he cupped the pot of the nearest one and bent down to be at eye level with it.

“This is stupid,” he muttered to himself, but there was a nagging feeling in his stomach, and he would have done just about anything to get rid of it. He closed his eyes. “Er, you’re a…very good plant.” He opened one of them. The plant hadn’t changed. He opened both eyes and sighed. He squirted it with the mister, set the bottle down on the sideboard, and went into the living room.

He curled up on the sofa and tucked his feet up under himself. It wasn’t Aziraphale’s hideously squashy sofa, or his own modern one that seemed designed to be fallen off. This was new, one of those long L-shaped sofas, blueish-grey and soft and comfortably firm. After a minute’s squirming, Crowley shed his suit jacket and unbuttoned several of the buttons on his shirt. He would have taken off the slacks too, but he didn’t have anything to change into and he didn’t want to walk around nude, since the only other options were to miracle new clothes on or brave passing Aziraphale in their bedroom. He couldn’t decide whose wrath would be worse: Hell, or Aziraphale’s.

He flicked on the TV and put on some soap he’d yet to binge. That’d give him something to do all night, at least. He didn’t fancy falling asleep on the sofa, and none of the other rooms had proper beds yet.

At around one in the morning, he heard footsteps descending the stairs, followed by a knock on the living room door. Aziraphale hung awkwardly against it, dressed in what Crowley knew to be very old but very comfortable pyjamas. Crowley hit the mute button. He didn’t say anything.

“I’m sorry.”

He tilted his head. “What for?” His voice wasn’t bitter, just tired.

Aziraphale stepped hesitantly into the room. He twisted his ring. “About earlier, I…I shouldn’t have said those things.”

“Do you believe them?” This thought had been hanging in the back of Crowley’s head for hours now, and he’d made quite the effort not to address it.

Aziraphale hesitated a heartbeat too long.

Crowley nodded. “Right.” He turned the television sound back on.

Aziraphale sat down on the sofa, on the other side of the bend in the L. “I forget, sometimes,” he said softly, “that we see the world differently.”

Crowley looked at him. “I mean,” Aziraphale continued, “It’s all the same to me. Cruelty is cruelty, no matter the target. And I worry…if it can be so easy for you to be cruel to other living things, why should our children be different?”

“You know I love them, don’t you?”

“I do,” Aziraphale nodded. “And that thought should comfort me. But I also know that sometimes, people are unnecessarily cruel in the name of love.”

“We just invited our friends over today to try to protect our kids from the horrible things that Heaven and Hell might do to them. Why would I go to that effort if I was just going to do horrible things to them myself? I’m not a monster.”

“But you are a demon.”

Crowley flinched. “Whatever happened to ‘you’re more than being a demon’ and ‘we’re not just vessels of Heaven and Hell?’ Or was that just crap?” He stared at the television to avoid looking at the angel, but he wasn’t processing anything on the screen.

Aziraphale went silent.

“You should go back to bed,” Crowley said. “Go…play with the kids, or whatever.”

“I can’t.”

That drew Crowley’s gaze. Aziraphale’s own expression was directed at the television as well, but his face was pensive. “They wouldn’t let me fall asleep,” he said, placing a hand over his stomach and wincing. “They’re upset.”

“Yeah, well, why wouldn’t they be?” Crowley said bitterly. “Got me for a dad, don’t they? And I am a demon, after all.”

Aziraphale flinched at the inflection, like Crowley had physically thrown the word back in his face. “That’s not it,” he said. His hands were twitching, but even if he had reached out, Crowley was too far away to touch. “They don’t like that we’re fighting.”

“Then let’s not fight.” Crowley turned off the TV and turned to the angel, throwing an arm over the back of the sofa. He wasn’t tired, but he felt exhausted. “I get it. You’re having second thoughts, and that’s fine.”

“That’s not it at all.”

Crowley continued as if Aziraphale had not spoken. “It’s a big house. Hell, I can stay outside if it’d make you feel better. Bet I can do something with the gardens, and you wouldn’t have to hear my methods and get angsty about it.”

“I don’t angst.” Aziraphale’s lips pursed, and then he shook his head. His voice softened. “And I don’t want you to avoid me.”

“Then what do you want from me?” It took a lot of effort not to shout it, and as it was the words came out dripping with irritation. “It’s not like I can reverse-Fall, angel. It’s not like I can suddenly become a paragon of virtue, and raise our kids playing fucking harps and singing the Halleluiah fucking Chorus or whatever. That’s not me. That’s never been me. You knew that.”

“I did. I do.”

“Then just…tell me.” Crowley slumped back against the sofa and closed his eyes. “Tell me what you want.”

“I want you to come to bed.”

Crowley blinked his eyes open. Aziraphale had shifted on the sofa, and he was much closer now. He offered out a hand. “Come to bed. Please. I don’t think I’ll be able to fall asleep if you don’t.”

Crowley stared at it. He looked up into Aziraphale’s face, and then back down again. “Aren’t you worried I’ll, I dunno, come into your dreams again? Be around the kids?”

“I was being stupid,” Aziraphale said. “I’m pregnant, I’m allowed.”

“I thought metaphysical pregnancies didn’t come with the side effects.” Crowley still didn’t take Aziraphale’s hand. It hung there. It might have been awkward, if either of them had had much room for feeling awkward at the moment. They didn’t. “What makes you so sure you’re not being stupid now? That thinking I’m evil wasn’t the right call?”

“I never said evil.” Aziraphale’s hand dropped, and it landed on Crowley’s knee. “I said demon. There’s a difference. And even that distinction was stupid of me, because if you’re this upset over it-“

“Just because I’m upset doesn’t mean you weren’t right.”

“Maybe,” Aziraphale said. “But the children feel safe around you. I feel safe around you. We are going to fight. There are going to be moments when I doubt. You know me, my darling. You know that doubting is normal for me, especially in recent years. And I’m sorry that my doubting hurts you. I wish I could say I’ll never do it again, but that would be a lie. What I can promise you is that I will always try to voice my concerns, so we can work them out as a unit. Is that acceptable?”

Crowley studied the hand on his knee. Specifically, he studied the snake-shaped ring that Aziraphale wore on his ring finger. “I wouldn’t talk to our kids like that,” Crowley said eventually. “They’re not houseplants, they’re children. Even I know the difference. And if it really upsets you, I can stop talking to the plants like that too.”

“I wouldn’t want to-“

“Aziraphale…” Crowley met his eyes. They both were silent for a moment, and then Aziraphale hung his head.

“It would be…preferable.”

“Then I’ll stop. But you don’t need to be so bleeding nice to them, either. They are plants. A little tough love won’t kill them.”

“Fine,” Aziraphale said reasonably. “Now will you please come to bed? I don’t think they’re going to settle until you do, and it’s making me nauseous.”

“Alright, angel.” Crowley stood up, and offered out his hands to help Aziraphale off the sofa as well. “I’ve already cleaned up dog sick today. I’m not eager to have you throw up too.”

Aziraphale didn’t roll his eyes at the tease, but he gave the impression of rolling his eyes anyway. He took Crowley’s hands and allowed himself to be led back upstairs. They both slept peacefully.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winter is coming, and Aziraphale is feeling the effects of the pregnancy.

Crowley’s garden was beautiful. It was no Eden, of course, but that was a good thing. Eden had been kept green and beautiful by the sheer force of God’s grace.[1] Crowley’s garden, on the other hand, was beautiful because Crowley made sure to put at least an hour or two’s work into it every day, and often more. It filled up the hours, and Crowley did not cope well with boredom. The fourteenth century could attest to that.

Aziraphale noted, with a great deal of pleasure, that Crowley was no longer quite so harsh to the plants when he spoke. He’d taken their conversation to heart, although he did still have a tendency to pit them against each other while he worked. Aziraphale brought out two cups of cider and watched him weed.

They’d had sex twice since Aziraphale had gotten pregnant. Crowley had instigated both times. Now that he’d been bred, Aziraphale found his sex drive, if not his actual body, returning to what it had been before everything changed. That was, while he had no aversion to sex and understood that it could feel very good indeed if all parties involved made the effort, he had no particular driving urge to have it himself. Even without the heat he’d enjoyed himself with Crowley, and he was more than happy to accommodate the demon in most scenarios if the desire ever struck him[2], but after the second time Crowley had actually asked point-blank how Aziraphale felt about having sex, and Aziraphale had told him, and Crowley had decided that “since it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll hold off in the future. At least until after the birth, and after that we can talk.” He’d been clear; if Aziraphale wasn’t really getting anything out of it, he didn’t want to push. Better safe than sorry.

But that didn’t mean that Aziraphale couldn’t enjoy the aesthetic appeal of Crowley on his hands and knees, bent over with his arse in the air, with his sleeves rolled up and a good deal of him covered in dirt. Aziraphale was an angel, and angels could recognize beauty.

He cleared his throat loudly. “Why don’t you take a break, my dear? I made some cider.”

Crowley sat back on his heels, twisting around to grin over his shoulder. “First the lemonade in the summer, now this?” he teased. “What happened to not being the housewife, angel?”

“Do you see a string of pearls?”

Crowley laughed and hauled himself to his feet, brushing dirt off his knees. It didn’t really matter. He had dirt everywhere else. He sauntered up to the patio, accepted the cider from Aziraphale, and took a grateful sip. As a rule, he didn’t get thirsty, but the cider was warm and strong and Crowley wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity for a bit of harmless hedonism.

“What are you going to do when winter comes?” Aziraphale asked, gesturing out to the carefully arranged rows of plants. “Once the Dalilah’s stop blooming-“

“It’s a mix,” Crowley said. “I’m got some in there, ‘round the edges, that bloom in the winter. It’ll be pretty, you’ll see. Besides,” he added, “according to your notes, we’re going to be pretty busy come winter anyway.”

“That’s assuming it refers to this year,” Aziraphale reminded him. His reading room was practically wallpapered with cards. He wasn’t devoting all his time to the book, but like with Crowley’s gardening, he liked to put at least a little time into it every day. “Even elephants have longer pregnancies, and they don’t live nearly as long as angels.”

“Pretty sure we’re past elephant at this point,” said Crowley, who had read about the unusual pregnancy lengths of different animals early on in his research. “Or getting there, at least.” He drained his mug and set it down on the patio table, which he proceeded to lean against. “How are you feeling?”

Aziraphale had remarked on being tired sometime last week, and since then Crowley had taken to asking after his wellbeing several times a day. Aziraphale accepted it graciously, and occasionally locked himself in his reading room when he thought his husband’s fussing might irritate him.

“I’m alright,” he said. “As long as I’m not on my feet too long. I think the children are growing a bit restless, and they seem to be taking it out on my body.” He smiled. “You know, fatigue usually begins manifesting in trimester one. Assuming they’re correlative, we could have another four or five years to go.”

“Maybe,” Crowley said doubtfully. “The kids are getting awfully big.” They weren’t just tiny balls of light anymore, when Aziraphale dreamed of them. They were still noncorporeal, true, and still shone so brightly that Aziraphale couldn’t make out distinguishing features, but they were getting larger. They had started out as roughly golf ball sized, and now were more on par with a large pomegranate. Carrying them was almost like being in heat again, although it settled largely in his chest, as opposed to his stomach, burning him up from the inside out. On one particularly hot day at the end of the summer,[3] he’d nearly passed out, and it had only been the grace of a nearby sofa that had kept him from ending up on the floor. Thankfully, Crowley had been outside at the time. Aziraphale didn’t want to worry him.

“The children will arrive when they’re ready,” he said. “I’ll let you get back to the garden.”

“Nah,” said Crowley, “I think I’m done for the day.” He pushed off from the table and brushed more dirt off his arms. “Let me clean up, and then if you’re not busy maybe we could go out? It’s been ages since we went to the Ritz.”

Aziraphale debated. A large draw of the Ritz was the excellent wine selection, but Crowley had told him no alcohol, no tea unless it was decaf, and no coffee, although the last one was much easier to abide by, as Aziraphale had never much liked coffee anyway. Metaphysical pregnancy or not, Aziraphale felt it was better to humour him. No sense taking unnecessary risks, anyway. Well, if he couldn’t have wine, he was sure he’d be able to get an extra dessert. If Crowley teased, Aziraphale would just have to remind him that he was eating for eight, even if eating wasn’t strictly required. He wasn’t sure. He’d been…almost hungry lately as well.

“Very well,” he said. “I’ll change into more appropriate footwear.” The slippers did not go with the comfortable and well-worn tweed suit in the slightest, but Aziraphale had never much cared about fashion, and so wore them around the house anyway.

Their usual table had people at it. Aziraphale worried, until Crowley murmured in the maître ‘d’s ear, and passed him something, and suddenly a waiter was informing that couple that “that table over there would really be a lovelier spot to eat their meals, and would they consent to move?” in a tone that implied saying no would result in them eating dinner somewhere else. Namely, not at the Ritz.

They took their usual seats.

“Do you usually…?”

Crowley shrugged. “Part of it used to be minor miracleing, but it was always partly a bit of old-fashioned bribery. Helps keep up appearances. Stops people asking questions.”

“Why didn’t I notice it before?”

“Because I didn’t want you getting in a snit over it. Wasn’t sure how highly bribery rated on the ‘thou-shalt-not-do’ list.”

They didn’t need to do more than glance at the menu to order. They’d taken to memorizing it years ago. When the waiter left again, Aziraphale said, “I don’t mind, you know. About the bribery, I mean.”

Crowley squinted at him. Aziraphale could tell, even behind the sunglasses, because of the way Crowley’s face scrunched up. “Really?” Crowley said. “I was pretty sure that sort of thing was frowned upon in Heaven.”

“Oh, it is,” Aziraphale agreed. He took a sip from his water glass, and nearly breathed in relief. He resisted the temptation to suck on the ice cubes. “But you’ll recall, I’ve done several things that Heaven does not approve of.”

“Like me?” Crowley wiggled his eyebrows. Aziraphale laughed.

“Yes, like you, you old serpent. Really, my dear, you needn’t to be crass.” Aziraphale was aware his scolding had almost no effect, given the affection he was sure he was radiating. “Anyway, I’m not especially concerned about you bribing a waiter for a table. It’s not like he’s a politician or a CEO. There’s nothing particularly nefarious about it.”

Their food arrived shortly after. It was old hat at this point, eating off each other’s plates. It had started millennia ago, when neither of them had been willing yet to admit that they weren’t really enemies and were in fact going through the long and slow journey of becoming friends. At first, Crowley would spear a bite of something off his plate with whatever utensils were fashionable for the time and place, and he’d grin and offer it out to Aziraphale. “A temptation,” he called it, and Aziraphale would eat it, simply to prove there was nothing wrong with accepting a gift. Crowley would then steal a bite off Aziraphale’s plate “in payment.” It gradually morphed into Crowley taking a bite of something and moaning something like “ _fuck_ , angel, you’ve got to try this, I swear if I didn’t know better I’d say Heaven had a hand in making it,” and Aziraphale would take a bite himself and agree that humans could create amazing things when they put their mind to it. And, eventually, it became Crowley offering Aziraphale biscuits or grapes or little cubes of cheese with his fingers, because Aziraphale’s hands were otherwise occupied, or else Aziraphale deciding that what Crowley had ordered looked interesting and sampling it himself, or Crowley automatically trying his meal and then switching their plates, or Aziraphale ordering something with the knowledge that it would come with two forks.

It had never occurred to them that the food might be poisoned. Well, it had, early on, which was perhaps why they always tried their own food first before offering it to the other in a silent demonstration of trustworthiness, and eventually the consideration had disappeared entirely. Crowley had been poisoned once, and subsequently discorperated, but it had nothing to do with food and Aziraphale hadn’t even been on the same continent at the time. And if other diners had ever thought it odd, them sharing food, no one had ever registered a complaint.

“We should go for a walk,” Crowley said halfway through desert, around a mouthful of Aziraphale’s tiramisu and eyeing his slice of cake.

Busy making his own work of one of Crowley’s crepes, Aziraphale merely raised an eyebrow. “I mean it,” Crowley said. “Gorgeous weather out. We could walk down to the pond, if you like. Feed the ducks.”

“Like old times?”

“Yeah,” Crowley nodded. “Like old times.”

In the end, Aziraphale had roughly two and a half desserts, and Crowley didn’t question it. The weather outside truly was lovely. It was cooling down in concession to fall, enough that Aziraphale fussily wrapped his own scarf around Crowley’s neck. The demon indulged him, even if he retied it afterwards. They walked arm in arm down to St. James Park. A light breeze rippled the water, and the ducks swam eagerly out to greet them.

“So glad you don’t wear that stupid top hat anymore,” Crowley teased, pulling the bread rolls from dinner out of his pocket and unwrapping them. He handed one to Aziraphale and tore off a piece of his own, tossing it into the water. “Never got why you kept bread in it.”

“There was so much space in it,” Aziraphale said. “I thought I might as well put it to use.”

Crowley’s grin was infectious. “Yeah, well. Nice not to have to brush breadcrumbs out of your hair all the time.”

“You didn’t have to before.”

“’Course I did,” Crowley said. “I was tempting you, wasn’t it? Keep your enemies close…”

“Mmhmm,” Aziraphale murmured indulgently. “I’m sure that’s precisely what it was.”

Crowley bumped him gently with his hip. Aziraphale retaliated by pressing fully against his side, so that Crowley had no choice but to drape an arm around his shoulder. It meant he couldn’t tear bread chunks, so Crowley tossed the whole roll to keep the angel close.

“For everything there is a season,” Aziraphale murmured. “A time for every matter.”

“Under Heaven?” Crowley finished when Aziraphale did not.

“Literally speaking, perhaps,” Aziraphale said. He leaned more heavily into Crowley’s said. “Metaphorically speaking, I’m not so sure.”

“What do you mean?”

“Heaven wouldn’t condone this,” Aziraphale said. His thumb rubbed against his ring. “Nor would they condone our children. To them, there is no place for either. But, more broadly speaking, there was a time when we were enemies. There was a time when we were reluctant allies. And there was a time when we were friends.”

“And now we’re going to be parents,” Crowley finished, understanding. “Husbands, too, but there’s not really a word that covers the breadth of what we are too each other. Language is too…I dunno, simple for that.”

“We’ve never needed words.” Aziraphale reached up, covering Crowley’s hand with his own. Their rings clinked together softly. “We understand. That’s the important bit.”

They watched the ducks in silence for a little while. The ducks, upon realizing they were not going to be fed anything else, swam away to bother other figures. Too much of the espionage was electronic these days, in the ducks’ opinion. Not enough operatives came to the pond to feed them anymore.

Crowley turned his head and pressed a kiss to Aziraphale’s temple, then withdrew and frowned. “You’re really hot, angel.”

Aziraphale raised his eyebrows. “Is that a flirtation?”

“What? Oh, no.” Crowley let go of Aziraphale’s hand and pressed the back of his to the angel’s forehead. “I mean, physically hot. You’re burning up.”

“I feel fine.” A little warm, yes, but no more so than usual.

“I’m taking you home.”

Even worried, Crowley kept under the speed limit. When Aziraphale made an amused comment, Crowley muttered something about discorperation, and how they had no guarantee that if Aziraphale died, the kids wouldn’t die too. The smile fell from Aziraphale face, and he lapsed back into silence.

At the house, Crowley manoeuvred Aziraphale onto the sofa and jabbed a finger at him. “Stay.” He was gone and back again in less than a minute, brandishing a thermometer. “Put it under your tongue, angel.”

“You do realize-“ Aziraphale was cut off when Crowley took his jaw in hand and stilled it, all but jabbing it under his tongue. Around the thermometer, Aziraphale tried, “Ou o reieh ish robaba won worh o meh, esh?” He might as well have been speaking a foreign language.

He tried again when Crowley removed the stick. “You do realize that probably won’t work on me, yes?”

It hadn’t. Aziraphale, like all angels and demons, naturally ran hotter than humans in a way that registered as several dozen degrees warmer on any given measuring device, and which in his true form was more accurately depicted in Kelvin than in Celsius or Fahrenheit. Had they been in a cartoon, the thermometer that Crowley was holding would have red bursting out the top and shooting clear across the room. Instead, the mercury molecules had fled the bulb at the bottom and accumulated at the top of the stick, trembling together.

“Right,” Crowley muttered. “Stupid.”

“You’re really that worried?”

“I know how warm you run, angel, so yeah, if it feels to me like you’ve got a fever, I’m going to worry.” Crowley threw off his sunglasses. They landed on the coffee table, skidded, and plopped onto the shag carpet. He pushed his hand back through his hair, leaving it sticking up in spikes. “I remember what you were like in heat. How hot you were. What if your body is rejecting the kids? What if it’s realized that this isn’t right, that I’m not an angel, and it’s going to shock you back into heat?”

He was pacing, actually pacing. Aziraphale regarded him cautiously. If Crowley was this worked up, he’d need to be eased back down. “I don’t think that’s what’s happening,” Aziraphale said slowly. “I will admit, I’ve felt a little feverish as of late, but it’s a different sort than before. I doubt I’m having some sort of celestial miscarriage.”

“We don’t know that.”

“We don’t,” he agreed. He reached out, snagging Crowley’s hands and pulling him down next to him on the sofa. “But it’s autumn. I’ve been pregnant for over a year and a half. The prophecies say that the children will be born in the winter, and we know they’ve been getting bigger. That’s probably all it is. They’re getting ready to be born.”

Crowley turned that over in his head for a moment, and then said, “What do you mean, you’ve been feverish? Why didn’t you say something?”

Aziraphale gave him a pointed look. “I didn’t want you to worry.”

“Well, I’m worried now.”

“I can see that.”

“Please don’t be glib.” There was real hurt in Crowley’s expression. “I get that you don’t want me to smother you, alright? But you have to tell me about stuff like this. Otherwise I’m going to panic when I find out about it on my own.”

A pang of guilt twinged in Aziraphale’s chest. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“We’re doing this together, remember? If anything feels off to you, even if you’re not concerned about it, I need you to tell me.”

“I will.”

Crowley sighed and pressed his forehead against Aziraphale’s. Their hands were still clasped, and Crowley’s knuckles were white. “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you,” he said. “Or the kids. I don’t think I’d be able to survive that.”

Aziraphale remembered the books, the ones that talked about powerful children with great destinies. The ones where the mother didn’t survive. He swallowed, and flipped their hands so his were on top of Crowley’s. “My darling,” he said quietly. “I need you to promise me something.”

 

[1] That is, until the mess with the apple, of course.

[2] Sex was just another way Aziraphale could express love, after all, and he was a being of love, and since Crowley was a very generous lover Aziraphale had no reservations about following his lead.

[3] On top of the exhaustion and the new need to sleep, Aziraphale was finding that other of his angelic tendencies were beginning to fail. Namely, his resistance to temperature, particularly heat.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley and Aziraphale prepare for the holidays with friends.

Angels and demons do not celebrate Christmas. They don’t celebrate any holidays, really, but they especially do not celebrate Christmas, despite what certain religions would like to believe. This is for two reasons. The first is that neither angels nor demons are particularly big on celebratory events. Celebration is too prideful for angels and too intimate for demons, and there are few aspects of celebration (food, drink, and socializing) that angels and demons find applicable to them. The second reason is that they’re usually busy working. For Aziraphale, Christmas historically meant a time when he was actively encouraged to provide miracles and foster goodwill to an extent that did not apply to the rest of the year, for concerns that it would be too inconspicuous. For Crowley, encouraging greed and consumerism were the main goals. Commercializing Christmas had truly been a stroke of genius, although he’d never anticipated humans taking it as far as they had.

There was a Christmas tree in their living room. There was also one in the front hall, massive and tucked to the left of the stairs, but that one only had a half-hearted string of garland wrapped around it. The tree in the living room, although much smaller, was fully decked.

It had been a bit of a debate between them throughout the first week of December. Aziraphale had pointed out that, since neither of them were working, they could indulge in Christmas traditions if they liked. In fact, he’d spent a few Christmases with Newt and Anathema, and one or two with Adam and the Them when they’d been a little older, and he’d rather liked the whole affair. A roaring fire, loved ones gathered around, the house decorated and beautiful; these were all things that Aziraphale was in favour of. Crowley had been a little more reluctant. “I dunno,” he’d said. “All that good will makes me itch.” It was only half a joke, and Aziraphale understood the truth beneath it. The spirit of Christmas was not something any demon, even one as mellowed out as Crowley, would feel entirely comfortable with. In the end, Crowley had agreed, but only if he was allowed to have final say in the decorating. Aziraphale had readily agreed.

Every doorway had a sprig of mistletoe hanging from it. Every single one. The banisters were wound with red ribbon – Crowley much preferred the red and green theme to white and gold – and there were poinsettias and holly berries arranged into table centrepieces and a wreath for the front door. But the tree in the living room was his favourite part. It had a tacky, reindeer patterned tree skirt, lots of shiny red ornaments painted with white lettering proclaiming such Christmas themed slogans as “Santa’s Little Ho” and “Spank Me, I’ve Been Naughty,” some specially ordered candy canes shaped like penises that Crowley had found online, and the closest tree topper Crowley could find to resembling Aziraphale, who at that point was rather regretting agreeing to Crowley’s terms.

He’d allowed Crowley to keep it that way with the promise that, were they to have guests in December, or if the children were in fact born that year, Crowley would take it down or replace it with something more appropriate.

It was growing on him, though. Crowley was hesitant about Aziraphale taking the stairs too many times a day,[1] and so Aziraphale alternated between nights in bed, dreaming of the children, sometimes with his husband and sometimes without, and days on the living room sofa, his feet propped up and a book in his lap. He was almost sad to see the decorations replaced with nondescript red balls and traditional candy canes when, a few days before Christmas, they invited Anathema, Newt, and all the Them over for a bit of celebration.

It had snowed a few days earlier, causing quite a bit of trouble in London as they fought to clear the streets. “It looks awful,” Adam said when he arrived, Damian and Dog in tow. “All that white turned to grey sludge from the cars running over it. You don’t get that out here.”

They didn’t, although some of the snow in the yard did turn yellow throughout the afternoon, as Dog was allowed the scamper through it to his heart’s content.

In concession to their human guests, they lit a fire in the living room hearth. It had remained cold throughout the autumn and the beginning of winter because of Aziraphale’s propensity for overheating and Crowley’s indifference to the temperature. To compensate, Aziraphale was down to one layer, a simple linin button-down with the cuffs rolled up to his elbows. He’d caught Crowley staring at his forearms several times, much to his gratification.

Newt and Anathema had arrived next, Newt marvelling at the security system Crowley had arranged to be installed, and Anathema nodding approvingly at the more occult precautions they’d taken. She’d complimented Aziraphale’s handwriting on the script along the gate, and Aziraphale had blushed and thanked her, although he’d had nothing to do with the final etchings, just the roughs. Brian came, and Wensleydale, and finally Pepper.

Pepper had brought Elizabeth. She’d asked first, and Aziraphale had almost been able to hear her wringing her hands over the phone, debating more with herself than Aziraphale for the better part of half an hour if it would be appropriate for her to invite her girlfriend to their Christmas party. Between reasonings like “she still doesn’t know,” and “what do I say if you meet her and then a couple days later have children,” Aziraphale had managed to explain quite reasonably that Elizabeth was more than welcome, that he very much wanted to meet her, that Pepper didn’t have to tell her about anything she didn’t want to but that Aziraphale and Crowley were both quite alright with her finding out if it came to that, and that adoption was a real and viable explanation for how a male-presenting apparently gay couple could acquire children without ever appearing to be pregnant.

“I still haven’t told her,” Pepper muttered to Aziraphale while Crowley greeted Elizabeth. “I don’t want her to find out just yet, you know? I don’t want to scare her off.”

“Perfectly understandable,” Aziraphale said, and then turned to Elizabeth with a beam. “Welcome to our home, my dear. We’re ever so pleased that Pepper finally introduced you. We’ve been asking for rather a long time.”

Elizabeth grinned at her girlfriend. “Embarrassed of me?”

“Shut up,” Pepper whined, her face turning red. She shoulder-checked Elizabeth, who shoved her right back, and then threw an arm around Pepper.

“Come on,” she said. “I want to see who else you’ve been hiding me from.”

“Lovely girl,” Aziraphale said to Crowley. He nodded and wrapped an arm around Aziraphale’s waist to guide him into the living room after Pepper and Elizabeth, although not before taking full advantage of the mistletoe.

Most of the Them were spread out on the living room floor, although they stood when Pepper introduced Elizabeth. Newt and Anathema had claimed a portion of the massive sofa for themselves, and Damian stood halfway into the kitchen, keeping an eye on Dog through the open back door. In blasted chilly air through the room, even with the fire lit, and when the appropriate round of hugging and “nice to meet you” had finished Adam whistled for Dog, who bounded in soaking wet, slipping on kitchen tiles. Damian caught him before he could make a mess of the living room carpet, and Crowley closed the kitchen door and fetched a towel to rub the canine down with before he could spatter the kitchen with melting snow. With the door closed, the shivering stopped, although Aziraphale was still trembling slightly. Of course, it wasn’t cold on his part, but a wave of faintness that he combatted by surreptitiously clutching the door frame behind him. It would perhaps have been cooler on the other side of the room, where Damian was, but Aziraphale was not willing to pass by the fireplace to get to it, and so remained where he was.

The room settled into comfortable chatter. “So, you’re celebrating Christmas, then?” asked Newt, who had never fully grasped the celestial nature of Aziraphale’s treatment of the holidays. “Very…human of you.” He glanced Pepper’s way, but Elizabeth was engrossed in a conversation with Adam and Wensleydale.

“Yes, I think so,” Aziraphale replied, beaming. “We are going for a less inconspicuous approach.”

“Your angel looks like Aziraphale,” Anathema remarked to Crowley, who was closer to her, the demon taking a seat on the sofa as well. “Isn’t that…?”

“Blasphemous?” Crowley would have winked, had he been able to remove his glasses. He settled for a slightly fanged grin. “Just a little bit. Aziraphale doesn’t mind, do you, angel?”

The louder address drew the room’s attention, and Aziraphale blinked. “Hmm? Oh, not particularly.” Although he had glowered initially when Crowley had put it up and made a comment about a stick up Aziraphale’s arse.

“Are you not religious?” Elizabeth asked curiously. “Or just not Christian?”

Silence descended on the room, save for the crackling fire. Were Crowley and Aziraphale telepathic, they would have had quite the conversation, but they weren’t, and so were relegated to passing between them a series of vibrations through the air that were slightly more substantial, informationally speaking, than just a handful of expressions. To anyone else, it would have appeared as if they were one of those in-tune couples who has known each other long enough to guess the other’s thoughts without speaking, which was technically correct on several counts, if not strictly applicable in this situation.

“Er, it’s complicated,” Crowley said eventually.

“Your parents or the church?” Elizabeth said knowingly.

“A bit of both,” Aziraphale offered.

“I was kicked out and burned at the stake,” Crowley said, darkly. No one seemed to find such a comment odd; they might not have known Crowley very well on the whole, but he was a demon, after all, and even for those not officially in the know, he was a bit flash. The only one in the room who registered surprise was Aziraphale, who had never heard Crowley willingly speak of either his Fall or the events of the thirteenth century so bluntly. He met Crowley’s eyes and did his best to convey the rush of love he was feeling. Crowley understood.

Elizabeth nodded. “My parents were super religious. They threw me out when they came home and caught me making out with my first girlfriend. I was sixteen. Luckily, my aunt was close, and she was a lot more open-minded. I’ve always thought it was awesome, Pepper and Adam and Damian’s parents all being so good about everything. Of course, having you two for uncles might have had something to do with it.”

“Right,” said Aziraphale slowly, exchanging another look with Crowley. They decided not to clarify. “I’m terribly sorry. Your parents really shouldn’t have done that, especially if they were with religious. Love-“

“Yes, thank you, angel,” Crowley cut over him with forced joviality. “We don’t need to hear the ‘love all things’ speech today. We’ve got guests.” He wasn’t trying to be harsh, and if Aziraphale took it that way he let it slide. In truth, he was more preoccupied with appearing like he wasn’t sweating, even as far from the fire as he could get without leaving the room. Without using his powers, it was not going very well.

The rest of the room was more interested in Elizabeth anyway. Adam was the only one who had met her more than once, and everyone was incredibly curious. The conversation turned to her, and she chattered away, answering the questions thrown at her cheerfully, while Pepper lurked and not-quite glared, but eyed the others warningly. If she was afraid of Elizabeth being scared off, she needn’t have worried. Elizabeth was quite enjoying getting to know Pepper’s friends almost as much as they were enjoying getting to know her. No one had any intention to bring up topics Pepper was looking to avoid because they simply weren’t relevant.

Crowley slipped off the sofa and sidled over to Aziraphale, who recoiled and then relaxed. Crowley wasn’t radiating heat like the humans, and his proximity settled the children, who up until then had been squirming irritably in their confinement. They stopped when Crowley’s hand, cool as the cold-blooded reptile he sometimes was, landed on Aziraphale’s side, but even without the movement Aziraphale still felt tight, like what made him essentially him, the abstract of an angel, was stretched thin and prepared to split at the slightest provocation.

“Alright, angel?” Crowley murmured.

“Fine,” Aziraphale said. His voice betrayed him, breathier than he would have liked, and he amended, “A little light headed.” It was the only way he had to describe the sensation without risking alerting the room.[2]

“Do you want to sit down?”

Aziraphale shook his head, and then regretted it as his vision swam. Still, he didn’t want a fuss. “I’ll be alright.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.” Aziraphale forced a smile. He was suddenly very tired. “But thank you, my darling. I appreciate the concern.”

Crowley looked doubtful, but he accepted the answer, and Aziraphale was grateful for it. Crowley gave Aziraphale’s side a gentle squeeze and then released him, reclaiming his spot on the sofa next to Anathema. The children protested instantly, and Aziraphale experienced something akin to an internal snapping, like plucking at the stretched rubber of an inflated balloon without it bursting. He just managed to withhold the gasp that threatened to tear from his lips, but he could not stop his hand from moving reflexively to his stomach.

Anathema noticed and shot him a look, but as she opened her mouth to speak, Adam interrupted loudly to say, “Dog, no! You put that down!” and attention was redirected to wrestling the ornament from the little dog’s mouth before he could break it and hurt himself. Aziraphale took the opportunity to slump against the wall without drawing attention. It helped the dizziness a little, although not as much as he’d hoped. Perhaps he would sit down, although given that the sofa was both closer to the fire and partly full of human bodies radiating heat like miniature furnaces, perhaps standing was still the better option.

When the chaos died down again and Dog had been saved from a mouthful of glass and Adam had apologized for the mongrel’s behaviour, the room returned to idle chatter. Snow had started to fall again, coming down in thicker clumps than before. “It’s beautiful,” Adam said, peering out the window from his sprawl on the floor. “Couldn’t have been better if I’d done it myself.” He gave Damian a sly grin and ignored Pepper’s abrupt glare.

“There’s nothing like snow at Christmastime,” Elizabeth agreed, oblivious to her girlfriend’s unusual reaction. “It’s been years since I’ve seen snow at Christmas.”

“It was always like this growing up in Tadfield,” Brian said.

“Optimal climate pocket,” Wensleydale added with a sharp look.

“Lucky,” said Elizabeth, missing the significance entirely.

“It’s good weather for a fire,” Newt said. “I’ll bet you get a lot of use out of this room, the fire and the snow outside and a book…” He looked to Aziraphale, who managed a weak smile and nod.

“It’s a nice house,” Crowley spoke so Aziraphale wouldn’t have to. “We really like it.”

“Good place to raise kids,” Brian said. “Spacious.” He openly admired the house, and when he’d first entered he’d made a comment about how easy it would be to lose a kid in a house that size, and surely, they’d need some assistance. Crowley and Aziraphale had smiled, tongue in cheek, and told him that yes, if they ever needed a babysitter, he was first on the list.

“Do you want kids?” Elizabeth asked, swivelling to Crowley with bright eyes.

“Er, yeah.” Crowley’s eyes flicked to Aziraphale. “We’re actually planning on them right now. We’ll find out any day now if we can get them now, or have to wait another year.”

“So, you’re adopting?” Elizabeth smiled. “Good luck. It sucks how adoption laws are for gay couples, but I really hope everything works out for you guys.”

“We hope so too,” Crowley said.

“If it doesn’t, there’s always surrogacy as an option. Pep and I were just talking about surrogacy the other day, weren’t we, love?”

Pepper let out an awkward laugh. “Er, yeah, we were.” She was clearly having the same rough thought that most of the room was having, which had a lot to do with Adam, Nephilim, and the understanding that a human surrogate for either an angel or a demon would get a lot more than they bargained for out of the pregnancy.

Crowley couldn’t very well say, “Yeah, but we don’t need to worry about it, because we’re not adopting and we don’t need a surrogate because my husband’s an angel and he’s already pregnant so we’re just hoping this pregnancy goes well, but honestly it’s been worrying me and I’m starting to be concerned about what the birth is going to do to him.” So he didn’t.

“We’re figuring it out,” he said.

“How long have you been together?” Elizabeth asked. “I mean, Pepper said she didn’t really know, and I kind of assumed it was awhile if you’re planning on having kids, but…” She trailed off, and then added, “I mean, if that’s not too personal?”

“Honestly, it feels like forever,” Crowley said, and smirked. Aziraphale would have liked to smile, but his molecules were twanging again. He wasn’t feeling nauseous – he’d felt that several times in the past year and a half, and this was most definitely not it – but it was akin to nausea, like the angel beneath the flesh was turning over in his skin. He had a proper headache now, and he rubbed his temple. It didn’t help.

“That’s sweet,” Elizabeth said. She glanced at Aziraphale, and then frowned. “Are you alright?”

Aziraphale opened his mouth to respond, and then there was a flash, like a bursting of light pouring out from beneath his skin, and Aziraphale’s eyes rolled back in his head. Crowley, moving inhumanly fast, just managed to catch him before he hit the floor.

 

[1] Honesty or not, Aziraphale was slightly regretting telling Crowley about the fainting spells.

[2] A more applicable description might have been something along the lines of “I feel like the spaces between my molecules are simultaneously packed too full for movement and vibrating at a much higher speed than usual and it’s making me feel like a paradox contained within a precariously balanced body.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale is in labour, but something is wrong.

Aziraphale had not been to Heaven in millennia, but he remembered everything about it. He remembered the offices, not technically in Heaven but Heaven-adjacent that he went to on the rare occasions he’d gotten discorperated or when he needed to report to the home office in person. He remembered being given the flaming sword, entrusted with the weapon and with Eden, and he remembered that even when he failed he’d been forgiven, still loved by God if not by the other angels, who had to love him - as that was the entire point of angels - but who did not have to like him and who often didn’t. He remembered music, mostly harps – although not played by angels – and cosmic harmonies. He remembered being formless, not yet tied to a human body like he had been for most of his existence, and simply being, boundless and infinitesimal at the same time. He remembered opening his eyes, new to the world, and being named by a voice filled with both love and expectation.

Angels do not go to Heaven when they die. Angels, as a rule, do not die at all. That is what it means to be eternal, and even a discorperation is a temporary inconvenience at best. Energy is still a form, even if it does not have a defined shape. In over six millennia of angels existing, the number that have actually died could probably be counted on one hand, although no one but Him truly knows the exact number, and He is not known for being the talkative sort. Because of this, no one knows where angels go when they die, but they know it is not Heaven.[1]

Aziraphale was boundless. He was stretched, freed from form and pitched out across the entire universe, like a blanket with the corners pinned. He was light. He was life. He was infinite.

He was quite possibly dead.

***

“No one touch him!” Crowley hissed, baring his fangs as he cradled Aziraphale’s body. Half the room had moved towards the angel as he’d collapsed, but they all halted now. Crowley stroked the hair off of Aziraphale’s forehead. It was damp with sweat, a supposed impossibility for an angel. He wasn’t breathing.

Elizabeth put a hand over her mouth in horror. “Oh my god, is he…? Should we call an ambulance?” Nobody reached for a phone.

“Get out!” Crowley snarled. His glasses disappeared. He looked wild. Elizabeth squeaked and looked to Pepper, but her girlfriend already had an arm around her shoulders, rushing her from the house. They went out through the kitchen door. No one wanted to get any closer to Crowley.

“I said, get out!” Crowley shrieked at the others. “Now!” Brian and Wensleydale both took a step back. They looked towards Adam. He nodded, and they backed out the door too. Damian scooped up Dog and made the wise decision to wait in the car. Adam, Newt, and Anathema stayed.

“Is he…?” Newt began, but a look from Anathema silenced him. Already standing, she took a tentative step closer to where Crowley was hunched over the limp form of his husband.

“I can’t,” Crowley started to sob. “He can’t…”

“He’s not dead,” Anathema murmured. “I can still see his aura.”

“There’s something wrong with it,” Adam said. “Like it’s bleeding.”

Crowley’s eyes snapped to the antichrist. “Can you fix it? Can you do something?”

“I don’t know,” Adam admitted. “I think that might be beyond-“

“If you can’t help him, what’s the point of you being here?” Crowley’s voice rose in volume and pitch. It was like hearing a needle scratch on a record, but drawn out over several seconds with no relief.

Anathema knelt beside Aziraphale and touched Crowley’s hand. “Let us see him.”

“It wasn’t…” Crowley hiccupped, wiping tears from his eyes. “I wasn’t supposed to do this alone. I can’t…I can’t do this alone.”

“The kids,” Anathema whispered, the last piece slotting into her understanding.

“The book said Christmas, but it didn’t…I don’t think…he wasn’t supposed to…”

The mention of a book was not lost on Anathema, but she knew better than to get side-tracked. “Help me move him,” she directed at Newt and Adam. Crowley was in no condition to do anything besides stumble along next to them, staring desperately at Aziraphale in the hopes that something, _anything_ would happen.

***

A very long distance away, although distance meant little to Aziraphale as he was now, something was happening. He was aware of it in the way someone might be aware of a muscle shifting beneath the skin; tangible, but removed from central thought. He was aware of it, but he wasn’t thinking about it.

He wasn’t thinking about anything.

***

Crowley paced. He paced because the alternative was to shout, to hit something, to set something on fire, and none of that was productive. Neither was pacing, but it gave him an outlet for the nervous energy bursting beneath the surface. At least he wasn’t crying anymore.

Anathema had made him wait outside the bedroom. She’d gotten Adam and Newt to lay Aziraphale out on the bed. The latter watched Crowley pace the hall, digging imaginary grooves into the wood floor in front of the closed bedroom door. He did not try to say anything reassuring. He had a suspicion Crowley would unhinge his jaw, bite his head off, and swallow it whole if he so much as opened his mouth, and he was probably right. Crowley was nonverbal. He’d stopped babbling and sobbing, and his stomach churned in a way that was all too human.

***

_“I need you to promise me something,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley’s stomach dropped. “I need you to promise me that if something happens, you will go on.”_

_“What’s that supposed to mean? Something happens?”_

_“To me. The children are strong. I’m not worried about them. But if I don’t survive-“_

_“Don’t say that,” Crowley begged. His grip on Aziraphale’s hands would have bruised a human. “Please don’t say that.”_

_“I need to, because I need you to hear it.” Aziraphale let Crowley squeeze, and he gave as good as he got. “I need to know that you will be there for our children.”_

_“_ You _be there for them.”_

_“But if I can’t be. If something happens and I can’t be there, I need you to be their father. I need you to not blame them, to not resent them because I am gone. I need to know that they are loved, that they will always be loved even if I cannot be there to love them. Can you promise me that?”_

_Crowley was silent. He couldn’t make eye contact. He was trembling, and Aziraphale brought his knuckles to his lips and kissed them one by one. “Darling?” he said. “Promise me. Please.”_

_“I don’t know if I can.” It was quiet, hardly even a whisper. “I mean, if they…if you die because of them, because of the birth or the pregnancy or-“_

_“It will not be their fault,” Aziraphale said firmly. “I chose to have them, Crowley. It was my decision to bear our children, and I knew there might be risks. I refuse to regret now, and even if I die, I will still not regret it. Because we created life, darling. That is the most powerful, the most awe-inspiring thing one can do, especially when one is an angel.” He let go of one of Crowley’s hands to lift his chin with cupped fingers. “Or a demon. We are bringing life into the world. We are bringing divine love. So please. Promise me. Promise me you will love them.”_

_The words stuck in Crowley’s throat, but he got them out. “I promise.”_

***

Crowley looked up when Anathema opened the door a sliver, slipped out, and then closed it behind her. “What-“

“We think he’s fine for now,” Anathema said gently, in the tone that nurses use when they’re worried about the patient, but they need to keep the family calm. “Adam’s keeping an eye on him. He’s trying to sort it out.”

“But-“

Anathema laid a hand on Crowley’s wrist. “You mentioned a book.”

***

Aziraphale was one with the cosmos. He was a part of the fabric of the universe. He had no eyes, but if he did they would have been closed. If he had lips, they would have been smiling. He did not have ears, but he was listening to the whispers anyway. Whispers of the universe. Whispers of life itself, always in turmoil. Always dying, but always being born too. An eternal cycle, and he was at the centre of it all.

***

Anathema’s eyes widened as she took in Aziraphale’s reading room. It was kept tidy and in order, but the sheer magnitude of what he’d done with the walls made it feel cramped and chaotic. Notecards in tiny, perfect handwriting were grouped and cross-referenced and plastered along the walls. Orderly rows of card files lined the table, each box with its own label. At the centre of it all sat the book.

“That’s not possible,” she said. “We burned it.”

“Not this one,” Crowley said. Without the opportunity to pace, he resorted to bouncing on the balls of his feet like an impatient child. It made a soft clicking noise whenever his heels connected with the ground. “Agnes sent it to us directly.”

Anathema ran her fingers reverently over the cover. She stared for a moment, entranced. Thoughts were racing through her mind, images of family legacies and cross-referencing and riddles to be solved and the future to explore. And then she looked at Crowley.

His form was barely holding together, like he’d forgotten about it. His eyes, yellow and perpetually snake-like, were not blinking. He wasn’t breathing either. Fangs poked down over his lower lip. His skin shimmered in the light, a faint scale-like pattern emerging, like his shoes but everywhere. And yet he looked the least demonic she had ever seen him.

Anathema squared her shoulders and did what any good godmother would do. She left the book and turned instead to the card boxes. “Check the wall,” she told Crowley. “Look for any sections about the birth that Aziraphale might have marked.” She skimmed the labels. One of the files was labelled “pregnancy” and that was the one she picked up. When she flipped open the lid, neat dividers sorted everything into subcategories. She selected “birth” and withdrew the whole stack. It was discouragingly thin.

Crowley stared at the wall. He was no longer bouncing nervously. Instead, he was stock still. The words were blurring before his eyes, making reading any of the notes impossible. He opened his mouth, but found he couldn’t speak.

A hand landed on his wrist, and he startled. Anathema’s eyes were pitying, which he normally would have hated, if Crowley had any room for hate left in his body. At the moment, he was too full of other emotions for that. Namely fear. Wordlessly, Anathema guided Crowley to Aziraphale’s reading chair and sat him down. Crowley collapsed, eyes closing, burying his head in his hands. Anathema left him there and read the first prophecy.

***

The universe was louder than Aziraphale had expected, and it was starting to feel cramped. It pinched at the edges of his consciousness, like it was shrinking in on him. He felt his energy ripple and squirm. Something was wrong.

***

Adam’s lips were pursed. He was frowning very hard, staring at Aziraphale where he lay on the bed. The angel wasn’t breathing. He didn’t have a pulse. What he did have was a fever so high that, even as the antichrist and semi-immune to such things, Adam’s fingers burned when he’d tried to feel the angel’s forehead. And that temperature was only rising, radiating off the angel and filling up the room. He’d opened the window, and snow on the ledge had instantly turned to water and sluiced down to the ground below.

Aziraphale shifted, a tiny twitch of his face and shoulders, and hope rose in Adam’s chest.

***

The prophecies were not as helpful as Anathema had hoped. She’d found the one about Christmas, and she’d gone through Aziraphale’s other notes as well, but many of them were written in a foreign language she had no hope of understanding[2] and the rest were nearly as nonsensical. She’d always assumed Aziraphale would have an orderly mind – he certainly gave that impression – but she’d forgotten to account for the fact that he was an angel, and so orderly to him meant nothing in human terms.

She’d managed to piece together some snippets and wrote them out on a blank card she’d found.

  * _vessel will not hold that which belongs to time and space_ \- not tied to physical body; still connected?
  * _divinity wrested from sky and quake_ – massive amount of energy
  * _babes laid warm beside the father_ – children unharmed?
  * _and seven cry but one be silent, not to see_ – blind? mute? dead? Aziraphale or child?
  * _a serpent torn_ – Crowley
  * _not heart nor head nor herb nor hope be any help, within the endless sky the dove will weep and the universe will speak if he chooses to listen_ – dove = angel? Aziraphale beyond help? listen to universe???



It was not a hopeful list. She didn’t read it aloud. She doubted Crowley would find much comfort in it. For the first time in a very long time, Anathema wished that Agnes had been kinder, or at least less predisposed towards riddles. A friend was dying. And it looked like there was nothing Anathema could do about it.

***

_Crowley regarded Aziraphale with caution. The angel sat opposite him at a wooden table, his outfit as always at least a half a century out of date, although that mattered less in those days. It was far from the first time they’d sat together, but it was the first time Aziraphale had looked quite so pensive. Broody was usually Crowley’s department, and it didn’t suit Aziraphale at all._

_“What’s this about?” Crowley feigned nonchalance. “Normally when you call for a sit-down, you’re inviting me out for dinner.”_

_“I’ve been thinking,” Aziraphale began._

_Under the table, Crowley’s fingers balled into fists. He hoped they weren’t about to fight. They never had, not in their entire history, except for the occasional acerbic exchanges that could be chalked up to a difference in worldview. “About what?” he asked suspiciously._

_“Heaven and Hell. You and me. Ineffability. That sort of thing.”_

_G- Satan, but Aziraphale fluttered when he was nervous. It’d been ages since the angel had been this uneasy around Crowley, and he’d almost forgotten how absolutely birdlike it looked. Crowley half expected him to start manifesting feathers. “Spit it out, angel,” he said, and shifted in his seat, positioning himself so that if Aziraphale lunged, he’d be able to move quickly too. Not that Aziraphale looked the sort to be_ lunging.

_In fact, Aziraphale was wringing his hands. They were nice hands, Crowley had always though, and allowed himself to think because he was a demon, and that sort of thing was alright for him. Although he did make himself think about it in general terms, rather than specific to Aziraphale, for reasons he did not want to examine._

_“I was wondering,” Aziraphale finally said, glancing over his shoulder and then leaning in very close and dropping his voice to a whisper, “what you might think about making our…arrangement…more official.”_

_Crowley blinked. “I wasn’t aware we had one.” He made no effort to lower his voice, and it made the angel squirm, which, of course, was why Crowley did it._

_“You know,” Aziraphale mumbled. “We keep getting assigned the same areas…we don’t, eh, battle like we ought. We…give each other a little space, metaphorically speaking.”_

_Now Crowley understood. “Oh,” he said. “That arrangement.” That was another thing he’d decided not to examine. He’d certainly never expected the angel to bring it up. He cocked his head. “What do you mean, more official?”_

_“Official,” Aziraphale repeated. “There’d be…rules. You know. Stipulations.”_

_Crowley turned that over in his head. He liked the unspoken arrangement they had now. He didn’t see much need for a spoken one. But if it meant Aziraphale was more willing to turn a blind eye to some of the things Hell asked of him, well…Crowley was an excellent negotiator. And what was the harm? “Alright,” he said, bending close to the angel and smiling like the snake he was. “What’d you have in mind?”_

***

The universe is hot. Scientists know this, although they put it down towards things like supernovas, and they like to believe that the universe’s natural state is actually very cold, that this heat is generated within the coldness and thus warms it. Scientists, as scientists often are, are incorrect. Cold is not the universe’s natural state, and the heat that it generates does not come from exploding stars. It comes from angels. Specifically, it comes from creation. The creation of angels, yes, but also the creation of demons. Lucifer’s fall alone has warmed the universe for millennia. As being of energy, angels and demons do not feel the heat. They are not equipped for it, the same way a human eye is not equipped to process colours outside of a very limited spectrum of light.

Aziraphale was hot. He’d been hot before, he remembered vaguely. Something stirring beneath his skin. Something growing inside him. But it was too hot to think now. He was burning, infinite burning, and he was in Hell. Not literally. But it felt like it.

He did not have eyes. But if he had, a tear would have been squeezed out of them and boiled instantly.

***

Adam squinted, and then leaned in. Aziraphale had stopped twitching and lay still, but something was still happening. Nonsensically, defying all known laws of the universe – which are admittedly mostly guidelines written in crayon by children who like things to make sense – a tear was rolling down Aziraphale’s cheek. And it was not being evaporated by the heat. It stayed there, crystalline and perfect. Adam shouted for Newt.

***

Crowley heard the yelling downstairs well before Newt made it up the staircase. His head shot up, and he was out of the armchair and barrelling out of the room before Anathema had time to be startled. When she regathered her wits, she followed, and nearly ran headfirst into Newt, who hadn’t managed to skid to a halt when Crowley had zipped past him.

“What’s going on?”

“Aziraphale,” Newt said. “Adam just said to get Crowley. He thinks something’s going on.”

On the second floor, Crowley burst into the bedroom and skidded to such an abrupt halt that his heels dug small grooves in the floor. Even he could feel the heat radiating off the angel. He was surprised the bed hadn’t caught fire. He looked at Adam, who stood up from his seat beside Aziraphale.

“What happened?” he demanded. “I heard shouting.”

“He’s crying.”

The words took several seconds to process, and by the time they did, Newt and Anathema had caught up. Anathema rolled up her sleeves the moment she stepped into the room, her forehead beading with sweat. Newt’s glasses threatened to slip down his nose.

Crowley stared at Aziraphale. Adam was right. The angel was crying, tears slipping down his cheeks and pooling on the pillow beneath his head. He was otherwise completely still. After a moment, Crowley took a step closer. Then another. Then he sat down gingerly beside Aziraphale’s lifeless body and wiped a tear from his cheek with his thumb.

The skin was boiling to the touch, but Crowley ignored that. He could fix up this body from a little burn. He healed fast.

“The dove will weep,” Anathema murmured. Crowley didn’t know what she was talking about and he didn’t care. He took Aziraphale’s burning hand between his own and clasped it tight.

“I’m here, angel,” he murmured. “I’m here, so you better get your arse back to me because you do not get to be a deadbeat father. I don’t care what I promised, I need you here.” He was going to start crying again, he realized. He swallowed hard and brought Aziraphale’s knuckles to his lips. It was like drinking hellfire, only worse.

“There’s nothing we can do,” Anathema said. Newt and Adam looked at her. “I read Aziraphale’s notes,” she said. “Agnes’s prophecies. She says we can’t help him. It’s up to Aziraphale.”

“Did he know?” Crowley’s voice was low. None of the humans had realized just how full of pain a voice could be until that moment. Hearing Crowley speak was like raking red hot nails across their eardrums. “Did he know what would happen to him?”

“The prophecies are vague-“

“Did. He. Know?”

“I think so,” Anathema said. “As much as anyone could have known, other than Agnes herself.”

“You bastard.” Crowley hissed. “You bastard, you knew. You should have told me, we _agreed_.”

“Crowley-“

“How long?”

Anathema frowned. “What?”

Crowley whipped around to glare at her. “How long? You said it’s in his hands. How long until he decides to stop being an arse and wake up?” He could not…he couldn’t even think the alternative.

“I don’t know.” Anathema had never felt so useless, not even during the Apocalypse. At least she’d been able to contribute then, if only a little. “The prophecies weren’t clear.”

“Then you don’t need to be here.” Crowley was smoking. The skin on his hands literally burned beneath Aziraphale’s touch, and little wisps of smoke were drifting up around them. He didn’t appear to notice. “Go,” he said. His voice was flat.

“Someone ought to-“

“Go. Now. Please.”

Anathema and Newt exchanged glances. Adam looked thoughtful. He put a hand on Anathema’s shoulder. “You go,” he said. “Happy Christmas.”

“Happy Christmas,” Newt echoed automatically. Anathema could not repeat it. She stared at the angel and demon, posed together on the bed like a storybook picture – probably Sleeping Beauty, probably one of the terrible versions with a sad ending – and allowed Newt to draw her backwards out of the room.

“I said go,” Crowley told Adam, but his heart wasn’t in it anymore.

Adam nodded. “I heard you.”

“You family will wonder where you are.”

“You’re my family too.” He said it so simply that Crowley had to look at him in shock. They used the word uncles, of course, and there had always been a bit of a joke, but it wasn’t like they were related. Not by biology, not by marriage. He hadn’t even had a hand in the boy’s upbringing. He’d never considered that Adam meant the words seriously.

“You’re going to hurt yourself,” Adam pointed out, nodding at Crowley and Aziraphale’s joined hands.

“I don’t care.”

“He will, though.”

Adam had a point. Grudgingly, Crowley released Aziraphale’s hands. His own smarted, where the nerves had not been burned away entirely. Portions of them were angry red, where they weren’t charred black or ash white. He set them in his lap instead.

“You shouldn’t be alone,” Adam said.

Crowley wanted to say that he wasn’t alone, that he had Aziraphale. He always had Aziraphale. He remained silent.

“I’ll send Damian and Dog home.”

Crowley grunted an acknowledgement. He barely registered the door closing behind Adam.

He swallowed around the lump in his throat and inhale, long and desperate. It didn’t make him feel better. He looked down at the unconscious angel. Aziraphale was glowing, but it wasn’t his usual glow. It wasn’t even the way he glowed throughout the pregnancy. There were tendrils, stretching out, breaking away and bleeding out of him. The light was leaving his body, and Crowley didn’t know where it was going.

Like the angel, Crowley once again began to cry.

 

[1] Demons, by contrast, know exactly what happens to them when they die. They are still eternal, and therefore still nigh impossible to kill, but owing to the nature of Down There, more demons than angels have died throughout the course of history by a margin of roughly a dozen or so. Demons do not expect to go to Paradise, and given that sending a demon to Hell would be something like keeping a civil servant in an office for eternity – mind-numbingly boring, tedious, and downright irritating at times, but ultimately par for the course – they can only imagine one possibility for a demon after death. That possibility is oblivion. Endless nothingness. An erasure from existence. As with angels, only He knows for certain, but this is one thing demons have utter faith in. They may even be right.

[2] Only six humans in the world could, and Crowley was better with spoken languages, not written ones, and so wouldn’t have been much help even if he had been capable of doing more than sitting in Aziraphale’s armchair and trembling.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At last, the birth.

_“What do you think they’ll look like?” Aziraphale asked Crowley. He was leaning back against the demon, who in turn was leaning back against the apple tree, watching the lights chase each other around the clearing._

_“Could be anything,” Crowley reasoned. “They could look like us, or they could look like…I dunno. Proper angels. Or proper demons. Lots of heads, spinning rings. Maybe like animals.” He contemplated. “They could look really, really weird.” He sounded worried about it._

_Aziraphale watched one of the lights turn back on the others and start to chase them in the opposite direction. “They can be anything they want,” he said. “They’re just…potential. Pure, unbridled creation.”_

_“Lucky them.”_

_Aziraphale gave Crowley’s hand a squeeze and settled back more comfortably against him. Crowley kissed the top of his head. “Whatever they look like,” Aziraphale murmured, “I hope they think like humans.”_

_“I hope they think like us,” Crowley said._

_“Same thing, more or less.”_

_Crowley laughed. “You’ve gone native, angel.”_

_“So have you. That’s rather the whole point of this, isn’t it?”_

_Crowley nodded. “I suppose you’re right. Still. Pure creation. Let’s hope they know what to do with it.”_

***

It had been three days. Crowley had changed Aziraphale’s bedclothes twice, because the angel’s tears had soaked through and his driving urge had been to keep his husband comfortable. Adam lurked around the corner, although lurk was perhaps the wrong word. There was no malice to it, no ill intent. Hovered might have been a better word, or lingered. Adam lingered in the hallway, around the corner of the doorframe, and kept watch.

It was Christmas Eve, or it would be when evening actually fell. Adam had put in the call to his parents that a close friend was very sick and his husband was a mess and would it be alright if he looked after them this Christmas instead? He’d make it up to them around the end of the winter hols, he’d promised. Mr. and Mrs. Young had agreed.

On occasion, Crowley spoke. He was not one for speeches. He never had been. But occasionally he would ask Aziraphale, very politely, if the angel would consider getting on with waking up. Occasionally he also called Aziraphale a bastard and demanded that he wake up, but mostly he asked nicely.

Even without looking at the etymology of the word, it is fairly self-explanatory why the process of giving birth is referred to as “labour.” There is, after all, a tremendous amount of effort involved in creating a new life, and that effort appears both magnified and sped up in what the body goes through to expel the child it has created from itself. Throughout history, many other words have been used to describe this process. The concept of the delivery is one, although this tends to invoke images of storks with little wrapped parcels for happy, smiling parents. Throughout parts of the seventeenth and eighteenth century, on the other hand, calling childbirth a “groaning” or a “crying-out” was extremely common, and this gives a much better sense of the work it takes to bring a child into the world. However, none of these words – certainly not delivery, which makes it sound easy, or crying-out or groaning, which imply a great deal of noise – truly give a sense of what Aziraphale was going through at that moment. The word which humans historically used which might be best applied was “travailed,” which means “engaged in painful or laborious effort.” The word Aziraphale might have used, had he been conscious, was “splintered,” which does not really manage to convey the concept of one’s essence being stretched, burned, and torn into tiny shreds as it manipulates itself into multiple coherent beings in a process so painful that it is impossible to remain connected to a human body throughout, but given that there really is no one single word that can describe that, “splintered” would have satisfied Aziraphale.

He was currently splintering, and he was not conscious enough to hear any of Crowley’s words. He was having trouble hearing anything at all, even his own thoughts, which were murky and indistinct, like an abstract film that one has to make sense of while blindfolded and wearing noise-cancelling headphones. He had been in agony for three days, and at his scale, that managed to feel like both a split second and an eternity at once. He had a vague sense there was something he was supposed to be doing, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember what it was.

Crowley did not need to be a being of infinite light, unbound from his human form, to understand what Aziraphale was going through. He couldn’t imagine it, but he could understand it. He could see Aziraphale’s light splintering, after all, could see the angel being unmade before his very eyes. He had not eaten, or slept, or gone farther than the linin closet in three days. It might have been a more impressive feat for a human, because Crowley did not naturally need to do any of those things, but an act of love like that, especially from a demon, cannot be discounted.

Aziraphale still burned. Crowley’s hands were healing; Adam had insisted on bandaging them to speed up the healing process, and nothing Crowley had said about his superhuman abilities had made any difference. Occasionally, Crowley would press his forehead against Aziraphale’s chest or stomach, burying his face and silently begging that when he lifted his head, Aziraphale would smile and pat his cheek and everything would be alright. It was not alright, but the feverish feeling Crowley got from touching him, even through the fabric of Aziraphale’s shirt, was worth it.

The door opened fully, and Dog trotted in. Crowley blinked in surprise at the mongrel, and then looked up at Adam, who leaned in the doorway. Dog whined and attempted to haul himself up on the bed, but his limbs were too short. Crowley had never been much of a dog person, but he scooped up Dog anyway and deposited him on the bed. Dog whimpered, licked Aziraphale’s sweaty forehead, and curled up by his side. He huffed, and stared at Crowley with sad eyes.

“Damian dropped him off,” Adam said quietly. “I thought he might make you feel better.”

He was, oddly enough. Crowley scratched Dog behind the ear with bandaged fingers. “What are you going to do when Aziraphale wakes up?” he asked him. He stuttered over the word ‘when’ and kept going. “He won’t smell like Hell anymore. The kids will be…they’ll be…”

Adam put a hand on Crowley’s shoulder. “Why don’t you come downstairs?” he suggested. “Some fresh air might make you feel better.” He ignored Crowley’s glare. The room was stifling and they both knew it. Crowley was actually sweating from the effort of staying inside.

“I can’t leave him,” Crowley said firmly. “If he wakes up alone-“

“He won’t be alone. Dog will be with him.” Adam looked wise beyond his years. Gone from his eyes was the child Crowley remembered. “Aziraphale is the only one who can help himself, and he would want you to take care of yourself. Just a short walk. Then you can come back.”

Crowley glanced doubtfully towards the door, and then back at Aziraphale. “Can I…” he cleared his throat. “I’d like another minute alone. Then I’ll…then I’ll take a walk. A short one. Just to…just for some fresh air.”

“Alright,” Adam agreed. He stepped outside and closed the door behind him.

Crowley ruffled Dog’s fur and then glanced up at the ceiling. He adjusted his position and did something no demon had ever done.

He prayed.

To say no demon has ever prayed is something of a misleading statement. Demons pray, but it is rare, and it’s usually to their Master, and its usually only lesser demons looking for a bit of a promotion. No demon worth his salt actually prays to Lucifer, and they certainly don’t pray in the direction of Heaven either. But Crowley was not praying to Lucifer, and he wasn’t praying to Heaven. He was praying Beyond. Not to Him, necessarily, but Crowley didn’t want Good or Evil to get their hands on his message, and so he sent it Elsewhere. And no demon had ever done that before in the history of the world.

The message was this:

“I, uh…I’m not really one for this, you know me, but uh…I figure it can’t hurt and right now…right now there’s a lot of hurting. Not just me, but I’m guessing Aziraphale…I’m guessing he’s got to be hurting pretty badly. Maybe he’s not, I don’t know, but if he is…if he is you need to do something about it. You need to help him because…because that’s what you’re bloody supposed to do, aren’t you? We see the wrath, where’s the mercy? There are eight lives at stake here. Do you get that? Some stupid, cosmic button, and yeah, maybe it’s my fault that he’s like this but it’s your sodding fault too, so take your fucking ineffability and _fix him_. I don’t care what it takes. Just…bring him back. Please. Don’t let him hurt anymore.”

Crowley waited. Nothing happened. “Right,” he said aloud. “Fuck me, I guess.” He reached out with one gauze-wrapped hand and patted Aziraphale’s tenderly. “I’ll be right back,” he said. He kissed Aziraphale’s forehead and stood. His body groaned in protest. He pointed at Dog. “You keep watch while I’m gone. Anything happens, you come and get me. Understand?”

Dog cocked his head to the side to show he did, and Crowley nodded. He took a deep breath, and made his way down the hall.

The cosmos are a funny thing. There’s a lot of space in them, for one thing, so any messages that get that far have a tendency to bounce around a bit, interrupted by alien spaceships and black holes and things. But, at the moment, Aziraphale _was_ the cosmos, more or less, and for a split second, he could have sworn he heard something.

His thoughts became a tiny bit clearer. He remembered what he was supposed to be doing. The unbearable heat ebbed, replaced with a different sort of burning, a glow that built inside him until it was too much to contain.

A tiny hand slipped into his, there was a flash of blue in Aziraphale’s mind, and the angel opened his eyes.

Every lightbulb in England shattered. Every light in Europe went out. Every electrical grid on the planet flickered for half a second, and then tentatively went back on. Aziraphale closed his eyes, whimpered, and turned onto his side.

Dog leapt from the bed and went skidding across the floor. He needn’t have bothered. Crowley and Adam had heard the crash and watched every exterior light explode in a cascade of glass and had gone running. Crowley took the steps two at a time, his heart several paces ahead of him. Adam followed at his heels, and nearly crashed into Crowley when he stopped in the doorway and stared, transfixed.

The light of creation still glowed behind Aziraphale’s closed eyelids. His sleep looked peaceful. The room was already cooling, the temperature difference palpable as Aziraphale’s temperature returned to normal. The glass from every light fixture in the room littered the floor. Crowley ignored it, and his shoes crunched softly through it as he approached the bed.

They looked…human. Seven infants, newly born but thankfully free of the mess that usually accompanied a human pregnancy, lay on the bed, tucked around Aziraphale’s body. They were, as babies often are, largely hairless and wrinkled, with their eyes shut tight and a puckered mouth. One squirmed, and then let out that ancient, eternal howl of the newly born. The others picked it up, following the leader with varying levels of enthusiasm.

Aziraphale did not hear it. His eyes remained closed. He slept.

Crowley spent half a second dazed in the face of screaming infants, and then reacted instinctively. He scooped the nearest one into his arms, sitting carefully on the edge of the bed and cradling the child close. He tucked a second one up in the other arm and rocked them both, cooing, “It’s alright. Dad’s here. I’ve got you.”

Like a miracle, the two in his arms stopped crying. Surprisingly enough, so did the ones still on the bed, and they all turned towards the sound of his voice as best they could.

“You’re smart cookies, aren’t you?” Crowley asked shrewdly, but there was a bubble in his voice, the unbridled joy of a first-time parent. Aziraphale looked fine; Crowley could see his chest rising and falling. He was breathing again, and if he was breathing – if he was _sleeping_ – that meant everything was going to be fine.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “We’re going to let your father sleep. Having you lot really took it out of him.” He nodded Adam over, and he approached. Dog attempted to follow, but upon his paw touching a shard of glass, decided to wait in the hallway.

“Now, we’ve only got so many arms,” Crowley told the children. “Your cousin Adam and I are just going to take you across the hall, get you all dressed and cosy and looked after while your father sleeps. It’s going to take two trips, so can I trust you all to behave long enough to do that?”

The infants burbled, which Crowley took as a positive. He nodded at Adam again, and Adam carefully selected two of the children and maneuverer them into his arms. They were, if you’ll pardon the expression, perfect angels. They allowed all seven of them to be moved across the hall to one of the children’s bedrooms – temporarily a nursery for the lot of them – and settled into bassinets without a fuss.

Crowley considered snapping his fingers and dressing them all at once – energy pulse like that, both sides were bound to have gotten the hint, so a little more miracle probably couldn’t do any harm – but he also remembered what his readings had taught him. New-borns especially needed as much contact at he could give them, and since he only had so many hands, he ought to devote as much of his attention to them as he could. He remembered how to swaddle from one of the parenting courses he’d taken[1], and how to support a baby’s head so it didn’t flop around, and with Adam by his side to assist Crowley managed to wrap each baby properly and get them snug and secure back in their bassinets. They were remarkably well behaved through the whole thing, except for one, who insisted on squirming against Crowley’s touch, and another, who let out a steady burble of noise the whole time.

“Alright, kiddos,” Crowley said when he was done. “Your cousin Adam’s going to stay with you for a minute while I check on your father. Be good for him, and I’ll be right back.”

He hesitated leaving the nursery, one hand on the doorframe as he looked back at them. Adam rocked one of the bassinets uncertainly, peering at the tiny body within. Crowley nodded, reassuring himself, and went to check on Aziraphale.

The angel stirred a little when Crowley sat down next to him. Dog whined in the doorway, confused. Crowley made a shooing hand gesture, although a friendly one, and Dog huffed and trotted down the hall to his master and the new squirming things that smelled interesting.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale murmured.

“Go back to sleep, angel,” Crowley said, kissing his forehead.

“The…children…?”

“All present and correct,” Crowley promised. “They’re beautiful. Get some sleep, and then you can see them.”

“Mmmph,” Aziraphale said, and obeyed.

Crowley laid one last kiss on the angel’s lips, breathed a sigh of relief, and returned to his children.

 

[1] Without Aziraphale, which had earned him a lot of contemplative looks from single mothers who had certain ideas about what sort of man went to parenting classes alone.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale finally wakes up.

Aziraphale woke alone for the first time in a year and a half. For the first time since his relationship with Crowley had changed irrevocably, he was laying in bed without the demon by his side, nor that familiar pressure inside him where his children had been growing. Both were absent.

He sat up. He vaguely remembered a sound like glass shattering, but all lightbulbs and windows were accounted for. He was fully dressed, wrapped in silky white bedclothes, and a light breeze swayed the gauzy curtains as dim morning sunlight beamed into the room. The bedroom door was closed.

A hand went to his stomach on reflex, but it only served as further reminder that there was nothing there. Nothing had ever been there in the literal sense, of course, but he still felt the loss. Something frightened swelled at the back of his throat. He was sure…but how could he be sure?

Aziraphale slid out of bed. His slippers muffled his footsteps across the floor. He paused halfway to the door; his whole body felt a bit sticky, itchy and uncomfortable in a way he didn’t usually have to worry about. He decided he had time to change. The worry could wait a few seconds, and he was only wearing a button-down shirt and trousers anyway. It wouldn’t take long to replace. As he shed his clothes and dug into the armoire for replacements – a full suit felt inappropriate somehow, but he did allow himself a waistcoat and a bowtie – he glanced between his legs. It was not an encouraging sight.

He redressed and went searching for Crowley. He did not have to look far. He could hear the demon half-humming, half-singing a lullaby, a proper one, not a Satan-approved version, just across the hall. The door was open a crack, and he pushed it all the way.

Crowley looked up at him and grinned. “You’re awake. I was beginning to wonder.”

Aziraphale marvelled. In Crowley’s arms was a tiny bundle, and he was bouncing it gently with practiced ease. Aziraphale cleared his throat. “Er, how long was I out, then?”

“All year.”

“All-“ Aziraphale felt faint.

“Yep,” Crowley’s grin widened. “Happy New Year, angel. You were out for about a week. I’d accuse you of hedonism, but after the effort you went through I was honestly expecting closer to a month.”

A week. Aziraphale relaxed. He didn’t even scold Crowley for the tease. Instead, he took a step closer and asked, a touch nervously, “Is it…I mean, after all that…is it just the one?”

“Oh, lord no,” Crowley said. He nodded at the semicircle of bassinets. “No, we’ve got seven brand new bundles of joy, as expected.” He nodded down at the one in his arms. “No, this one just gets fussy when they’re not being held. Every time I put them down, it’s sob city. You want to hold them a minute? I think my arms might actually be getting sore.”

He didn’t have to ask twice. Aziraphale accepted the baby from Crowley, mindful of the delicate head. The child had opened their mouth as if to wail when they had been separated from Crowley’s chest, but upon feeling Aziraphale’s warmth they closed it again, and made a soft gurgling sound as they burrowed in. Aziraphale knew instinctively which one they were.

“They always were a bit clingy,” he murmured, rocking the baby gently. He gave Crowley a teasing smile. “I believe the phrase I used was-“

Crowley held up a threatening finger. “Don’t say it. We decided on Ephraim, didn’t we?”

“We did.”

Ephraim yawned and opened one eye. Aziraphale’s breath caught. “Oh my.”

Crowley’s face fell. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “There’s that.”

“Their eyes…” Aziraphale stared even after Ephraim closed it again. “They’re…”

“Mine,” Crowley said wretchedly.

It wasn’t strictly true. Ephraim’s eyes were slitted, the same snakelike design that Crowley sported, but they were a bright, vivid blue, not all that far off from Aziraphale’s colouring. “Are they the only one?” Aziraphale asked.

“No. Two others. One with the whole package, one normal-looking but yellow. Phinehas and Ophelia.”

Still rocking Ephraim, Aziraphale peered into the bassinets. The other children appeared to be sleeping too, but like Crowley, Aziraphale had no problem picking out which was which. They all had the same individual auras, the sort of _feeling_ to them that had set them apart even as balls of glowing light inside Aziraphale’s consciousness. They were all equally beautiful. Tiny miracles, in the most literal of senses. Life that Aziraphale and Crowley had brought into the world. He’d been a vessel for life. It had only just begun to hit him how massive that was. He’d understood before, of course. He’d even been proud of it. But now Aziraphale was feeling something beyond pride. He was feeling holy in a way he’d never done in his life.

“They seem so human,” he remarked, his voice hushed. “Are they really sleeping?”

Crowley nodded. “And they’ve been eating,” he said. “Although I haven’t had to change any diapers, for some reason. At my best guess, it’s one of two things. Either they’re just going to _do that_ , be more human than expected, or they’re still working out making their own bodies, and all that food and sleep is fuel for them. My money’s on the latter.”

Aziraphale nodded. Just maintaining his body had always taken a good deal of upkeep, to say nothing of how Heaven griped about remaking it after a discorperation. And just thinking of Heaven…

Aziraphale clutched Ephraim a little closer. “Their, ah…miracle output?”

“Honestly, I’m not really concerned about that at this point.”

Aziraphale blinked. “Oh? Why not?”

“Because in all likelihood, nothing they do could possibly measure up to the energy output of giving birth to them. I got a call from Anathema. Do you realize you broke every lightbulb in the country? Power outages all over Europe…I mean, even America was affected. No one can explain it, except us, of course, and we’re pretty damn lucky the blast radius was so big, because no one can track it farther than ‘somewhere in England.’ If Heaven and Hell didn’t see _that_ , they’d have to be blind. They may be stupid, but they’re not _that_ stupid.”

So he hadn’t been imaging shattering glass. Aziraphale resisted the urge to fidget nervously, and only managed because he was holding a baby. “Have they come looking for us?”

Crowley shrugged. “It’s only been a week, and you know they’ve got weird senses of time. Adam said the kids throw off a weird energy, you remember? Makes them hard to track, or something. But that doesn’t mean they’re not looking. Little…angel-demon whatevers-“

“Colucumbra.”

“What?”

“Colucumbra,” Aziraphale repeated. “The children, they’re colucumbra.”      

“What the fuck is a colucumbra?”

“Well, I realized that there wasn’t a word for what our children would be. Humans didn’t think they were possible, and until recently neither did angels and demons. So I took the liberty of creating the word myself.”

“Colucumbra,” Crowley repeated. He turned it over on his tongue. “Colucumbra. It is kind of catchy. Got to admit, though, I’m surprised at the Latin. Why not Hebrew, or one of the angelic languages, for that matter?”

“I like the Latin,” Aziraphale said. “And you don’t speak the angelic languages.”

“I could. If I wanted to.”

“You get blisters on your tongue when you try.”

“But I could speak it.”

Aziraphale shook his head and laughed. It was a sweet, full-bodied laugh, and it brought a smile to Crowley’s face. He’d missed Aziraphale’s laugh. He’d missed Aziraphale’s everything.

“Anyway,” he said, “just because Heaven and Hell can’t track baby colucumbra doesn’t mean they’re not looking. We’ll have to keep an eye out. Keep the miracles to a last resort and keep inside the gate if possible. Adam left a couple days ago, but he popped to the store beforehand, got us set with baby formula and what have you.” They’d been prepared for most things, given the amount of reading and planning Crowley had done. Children who ate had not been one of those things.

“We’re giving them formula?”

“Unless you think you’re about to start producing breast milk, yeah, we’re giving them formula.”

Aziraphale shuddered at the idea of lactating. “No,” he said. “Definitely not. Although…” He trailed off, looking down at Ephraim and wondering if he should be covering the child’s ears.

“Although what, angel?”

He tried to think how to put it delicately. “You know how I was, er, affected? By Heaven?”

“You’re going to have to be more specific than that,” said Crowley, a note of sour suspiciousness creeping into his voice.

“The, ah, change they made that got me, well, with child to begin with?”

“What about it?”

“I appear to still be affected by it. Not the urges,” he added quickly. “Just the, ah, _physicality._ ”

Crowley’s eyebrows shot up. The suspicion faded, replaced by surprise. “You mean you’ve still got a-“

“ _Yes_ ,” Aziraphale hissed. He actually did cover Ephraim’s ear, glaring at the demon.

Crowley laughed. “Relax, angel, they’re asleep. Besides, they’re clever. Cleverer than most babies, I reckon. I’m pretty sure they’d be able to understand what you were saying, even with the prudish innuendo.”

“I am not a-” Aziraphale huffed and cut himself off, turning up his nose.

“Aw, come on,” Crowley said, opening his arms. He pulled Aziraphale into them, careful of the child between them. “Come here. I’m teasing, you know I’m teasing.” He rubbed his nose against Aziraphale’s. “I missed you, angel. So fucking much.”

The funny thing was, Aziraphale had missed him too. It shouldn’t have been possible; he’d been asleep the whole time, or else wracked with labour pains that made missing anyone, or even forming coherent thought, quite impossible. But he had missed Crowley anyway. He remembered the decades and, on occasion, centuries they’d spent apart, and not for the first time wondered how they’d managed such a feat. It would have been impossible now.

He kissed Crowley, soft and sweet, and murmured, “I missed you too, my darling. But you seem to be keeping busy.”

“Not as busy as you’d think,” Crowley admitted. “If you don’t need to eat or sleep, taking care of children who do is a whole lot easier. Even if there are seven of them.”

“If you’d like a break, I’m sure I could-“

Crowley waved him off. “Nah, I’m good. But feel free to help all you like. I’m sure the kids are thrilled to meet you. Properly, I mean. Outside your head.”

“I will miss dreaming,” Aziraphale said, a little wistfully.

“I feel like I still am,” Crowley admitted. “The idea of being a parent never crossed my mind before they came along, for obvious reasons, and now that they’re here…it feels unreal.”

“In a good way, I should hope.”

“In the best way.” Crowley took Ephraim back from Aziraphale, who was reluctant to release the child. He left them go, however, as one of the children in the bassinets started to squirm and howl.

“Pick them up,” Crowley advised. “Quickly. Like a little ringleader, they are, and once they get going the whole lot of them start up too.”

“There, there,” Aziraphale cooed, scooping up the screaming baby. A pair of blue eyes, near identical to his own, popped open and narrowed at him. “There’s no need to fuss. Are you hungry, my dear?”

“Bottles are in the minifridge, but you’ll have to go downstairs to heat it up.”

Aziraphale found a bottle in the fridge, as indicated. “We’re going on a little trip downstairs,” he said, rocking the baby. “And then you’ll have something to eat.”

“Make it quick,” Crowley said to his back. “Atty knows what they want, and they’re not one to wait for it.”

Aziraphale paused in the doorway and turned back. “What did you just call them?”

“Atty.”

“I’m quite positive it’s _Athaliah_.”

“Sure,” said Crowley. “You want to call the kids by a bunch of long, dramatic names, go for it. Atty’s shorter, and I’m pretty sure there’s less chance of them hating it as they grow up.” He smiled amicably.

Aziraphale narrowed his eyes at his husband but decided not to retort as Athaliah let out a short, barking wail, with clear threat to do it again if he didn’t get a move on with the bottle. Aziraphale went downstairs. The lightbulbs were perfectly fine down there as well, so Aziraphale assumed that Crowley had replaced them while he’d been sleeping off the birth. He wondered if shattering every lightbulb in England included those not affixed to electrical appliances, and if so, if Crowley had simply miracled new ones or if they’d been shipped in from abroad.[1]

“It will just be another minute,” he promised Athaliah as he carefully heated the bottle on the stove. “You’re being ever so patient for me.”

Athaliah gurgled, ambivalent.

“Is your dad correct? You can understand us?”

Another burbling sound.

“As adorable as you are right now, I must say I’m looking forward to the part where speech is viable. We have no idea, of course, what your growth patterns will be like. A bunch of lovely little mysteries, you are.” Aziraphale was mostly babbling, without paying much attention to what came out of his mouth. He was more focused on the bottle, although he did get the feeling Athaliah understood what he was saying. It made sense. The children had understood him when they were still being formed, still figurative balls of light. It would be nonsensical to lose that ability in corporeal form. Of course, life could be nonsensical at times, but Aziraphale was confident this was not one of them.

The bottle was warm enough, and he took it off the stove. Athaliah drank greedily when he offered it to them, sucking it down like it was nothing. Aziraphale couldn’t recall if he had ever eaten anything with such fervour, which was impressive, considering food was one of the pleasures he had always allowed himself to indulge in.

“You must be terribly hungry,” he said. He waited until Athaliah slowed and then stopped drinking altogether to readjust them in his arms, ensuring the blanket was still secure around them, before padding back up the stairs to Crowley.

The demon had taken a seat in the rocking chair in the corner, Ephraim laying against his chest. His eyes were closed, and his head was tipped back. He looked asleep, although he wasn’t. “All good?” he asked Aziraphale without opening his eyes.

“All good. Do they need to be burped, or…?”

“Not usually. Watch out for Phin, though. They like to throw up afterwards, the bastard.”

“Language!” Aziraphale admonished. He set Athaliah back in the bassinet and folded his arms, frowning at the demon. “And you know full well our children aren’t bastards in _any_ sense of the word.” He drummed his fingers pointedly against his arm, the ring flashing in the light.

“They were when we made them,” Crowley teased. He opened one eye, and then the other, sitting up properly and taking care Ephraim didn’t fall. “I’m _joking_ , angel, come on. Besides, this is the twenty-first century. No one cares if they’re born out of wedlock or not.” He paused, and then amended, “Well, no one who wouldn’t already be put out at them having two fathers, at any rate. Besides, it’s not like you really approve of the church.”

“Some churches, I do.” They didn’t even have to be Christian, really. Aziraphale approved of any religious organization that preached love above all things and meant it. He was just arguing with Crowley because he liked to, because it was a relief to argue about something without stakes for once, to be utterly content that they were both here on this earth together and with their children.

One of the bassinets – Phinehas, Aziraphale thought - started to kick up an awful fuss, and their shrieking inspired two of the others to join in. “Troublemaker,” Crowley murmured affectionately, and stood up. He kept Ephraim on his shoulder and scooped three bottles out of the fridge. “Think you can keep them settled long enough for me to get these heated?”

Aziraphale nodded. He picked up Phinehas, who had managed to kick off their blanket and was thrashing quite impressively for so small a child, and crooned, “Be a dear, please, and hold still a moment, won’t you?” Phinehas seemed startled by the request, and froze long enough for Aziraphale to retuck their blanket more solidly around them, which instigated another cry of complaint. The other two, Percival and Isidora, settled down considerably when Aziraphale began to rock their bassinets, humming softly some half-remembered lullaby he’d heard years ago.

Phinehas managed to be untucked and re-swaddled twice more before Crowley returned. Ephraim let out a wail when Crowley set them down in their bassinet in favour of picking up Isidora and passing Aziraphale one of the bottles for Phinehas. Aziraphale took it, but also bent low over Ephraim and murmured, “We’re still here, dear. We’re not going anywhere. Your siblings need to be fed, and we really can’t hold you all the time.”

Ephraim’s shrieking subsided into whimpering, and Aziraphale clucked his tongue, a sympathetic smile on his lips. “I know, dearheart, I know. Be patient, please. For me?”

Ephraim’s lip quivered, blue eyes staring pathetically up at Aziraphale, but they stopped crying. Aziraphale straightened up and gave Phinehas the bottle, which the baby in his arms had been clambering for, untucked once again from the blanket.

“Wow,” Crowley murmured. “Kid wouldn’t do that for me.”

“Nonsense,” Aziraphale said. “I’m sure if you asked nicely-“

“I did, angel, believe me.” Isidora finished with their bottle and Crowley swapped them out for Percival, keeping an eye on the baby he’d set down in case they needed him for anything else. “It’s a good thing they seem to take it in turns, the feeding thing, or I’d have been in over my head.”

Aziraphale fixed Ephraim with a stern look. “I know you love your dad,” he said firmly, “but you really ought to listen to him.”

Crowley snorted. “Tough love from you, angel?”

“It’s hardly tough love. I’m making a simple request.”

“That wasn’t a request, that was a statement.”

“It still isn’t tough love. I gave no indication of consequence. Nor will there be,” he added, for Ephraim’s benefit.

Crowley laughed. “You know, I think we might do alright at this parenting thing.”

Phinehas chose that moment to finish with their bottle, cough once, and then spit up all over Aziraphale’s waistcoat. They gave Aziraphale a tiny smile that managed, even without teeth, to look fang-like. Crowley laughed harder, and took the baby from Aziraphale. “Troublemaker,” he said, just as affectionately as before. “Definitely my kid.”

“As if there was any doubt,” Aziraphale said, and shed his waistcoat. He set it aside to deal with later.

“I know,” Crowley said. “Still. Nice to know they won’t all be goody-two-shoes.” He bumped Aziraphale’s hip playfully.

Aziraphale bumped him right back, although it was slightly more of a shoulder-check. “I was never a ‘goody-two-shoes,’ and you know it.”

“Oh, I dunno. You were pretty righteous for a while there.”

“If you weren’t holding our child,” Aziraphale muttered, and resisted the urge to grin. He rolled his eyes instead. “Very well. But I wasn’t _very_ righteous, and it wasn’t for very long.”

“Whatever you say, angel.”

“Don’t undermine me in front of the children.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Aziraphale leaned against Crowley’s side and closed his eyes. Crowley draped the arm that wasn’t occupied with Phinehas around Aziraphale’s shoulder. Aziraphale had been adrift in the cosmos, and he was finally, truly home.

 

[1] The answer, which Aziraphale would later learn, was that only lightbulbs attached to a power source had been affected, although a fair number of them had also been broken by people tripping around in the dark trying to find their replacement bulbs. He expressed a feeling of guilt over hospital services and the like, but Crowley reassured him that he’d looked into that, and there’d been some rather miraculous circumstances involved. Headlines were raving about it. All the lights out in England and zero casualties. Crowley swore it had nothing to do with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you following me on tumblr, you might know that I found out, weeks after writing this, the actual word for angel/demon hybrids is nephalem (supposedly, and not to be confused with nephilim, angel/human hybrids). I'd already gone to the trouble of making a word, so I am going to pretend that colucumbra is the correct (and in this universe only) word for it. 
> 
> So that's it of the pregnancy fic. There is a sequel partially written, about them raising the children. I've yet to decide how/when I'm going to go about posting it, so if you want to have input go to [this post](https://marveliciousfanace.tumblr.com/post/185824541922/this-is-specifically-for-readers-of-my-fic-omens) on my tumblr. Otherwise, thank you for reading! Your comments have been gifts, and I hope to see some returning readers when the sequel goes up.
> 
> Update! Someone drew artwork for this fic! Go check it out [here](https://twitter.com/kerinky/status/1144873356446986240) because it's absolutely adorable!


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